


See the World Hanging Upside Down

by tigerlily_sunshine



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bigotry & Prejudice, Confused Ashton, Coworker Ashton, Coworker Luke, M/M, Multi, OT4, Pining, Polyamory, Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:55:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 87,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5043850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlily_sunshine/pseuds/tigerlily_sunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You should go out with me tonight,” says Luke, and that’s not what Ashton expected at all.</p><p>Ashton’s stomach jumps to his throat. He feels a little faint, and he holds his breath. He’s a little confused. He could have sworn Luke was in a relationship with either Calum or Michael—he’s still not entirely sure exactly which one Luke actually goes home to—but it sounds an awfully lot like Luke’s asking Ashton out on a date. </p><p>It’s a miracle, really, that he doesn’t humiliate himself before Luke’s done talking, because the next few words that fall from Luke’s mouth make it entirely clear it’s not a date.</p><p>“I’ve been talking you up to Mikey and Cal for ages, and they’re dying to meet you.”</p><p>(In which Ashton pines after Luke, who is already in a relationship, and Luke really wants Ashton to meet Michael and Calum.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Mumford & Sons "The Cave."

“So, long story short, Cal is still trying to convince Mikey we need a puppy, and Mikey’s lobbying for a kitten, and I don’t think I’m going to get that penguin,” says Luke, his long, winding tale coming to an end.

He’s got a rich, syrupy voice that’s so easy to get lost in and a distracting habit of flicking his lip ring with his tongue. Ashton can’t help but to stare at Luke’s mouth, caught in a trance of what it might be like to kiss Luke. He’s sure it’d be everything of his dreams.

“So what do you think?”

“Huh?” says Ashton, unintelligibly, and he realizes that maybe he’s not been listening as much as he should have. It’s not his fault, though. If it weren’t for Luke and his stupid lip ring and his soothing voice, Ashton might not get distracted so easily.

Luke chuckles. The corners of his eyes crinkle like they always do when he finds something truly amusing. Ashton can’t help but to smile himself, proud that he has elicited such a beautiful response. He’s got a whole list of his favorite Luke-isms, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes are probably top of that list. Or maybe the second. He’s pretty in love with Luke’s lip ring.

“I said which would you rather have? A puppy or a kitten?”

“Oh—I’m allergic to cats.”

“You are?” murmurs Luke, a thoughtful glint in his eyes that Ashton doesn’t quite understand. “Hmm. May have to side with Mikey just to keep things even.”

Ashton furrows his eyebrows, feeling at a total loss at the turn of the conversation. Maybe he missed more than he thought of Luke’s whole spiel about the tension he left behind in his shared house this morning. He’s not entirely sure how he could have missed something so big that would explain what Luke is talking about. But it’s not the first time he’s done it.

Maybe it’s like the thing with Luke’s housemates. Ashton knows Luke lives with Calum and Michael. He talks about them all of the time, so it’s easy to put two and two together, even if Luke hadn’t explained his living arrangement without prompt the very first day Luke was transferred into Ashton’s office. Ashton had immediately been smitten with his new coworker, more so than he’d ever been with Luke’s predecessor, and by the time Luke unpacked his homemade lunch, he’d been gushing over his housemates who he’s apparently known since school. He talked all about how nice Calum is to pack his lunch and about how Michael added a cup of yogurt to claim he helped. Somewhere along the way, though, Ashton missed exactly which one it was that Luke was dating.

So it’s sort of like that now.

“What—?”

“Hemmings! Have you got that report done for the bank, yet?” demands their boss, Jimmy, sticking his head through the door. He’s a middle-aged man who likes to think he’s more important than he really is and spends his day patrolling the corridors of the office to ensure that everybody else is doing their jobs. He’s seemed to have a particular sort of distaste for Luke, or so Ashton’s garnered since Luke’s transfer. “It was supposed to be on my desk yesterday.”

“It’s supposed to be on your desk on the seventeenth. That’s tomorrow,” says Luke, swiveling in his chair to face their boss. He’s certainly got more balls than Ashton does to take this kind of tone with the man in charge of their paychecks. Ashton’s got to admire him, even if his voice is so cold now that even the lights in the room seem dimmer. “But since you’re here, I’ve got it ready for you. It’ll save me a trip, won’t it?”

He swipes a folder off his desk and thrusts it toward their boss. Jimmy stares at Luke for a moment. He narrows his eyes at Luke, condescending in a manner that Ashton doesn’t quite understand. In all the time Ashton’s worked with Luke, he hasn’t figured out why Jimmy has a special sort of dislike for Luke.

After a moment, Jimmy takes the folder from Luke, making sure to grab the very least of it that he can. Luke holds the man’s gaze. He doesn’t back down, just keeps his cool until it’s obvious that he’s won the upper hand in this war of glares. Jimmy takes his defeat, disappears from their office. When Ashton turns to look at Luke, he notices the tense set to Luke’s shoulders and the stormy, almost unreadable expression on Luke’s face. He thinks this might be the time to ask about the history between Luke and Jimmy and about why Luke showed up here one day out of the blue.

“You all right, mate?”

Luke tears his eyes from the empty doorway to meet Ashton’s, and his gaze immediately softens. His shoulders slouch. He offers Ashton a grin, but it’s less enthusiastic than earlier. He turns back around in his chair so that he’s facing Ashton now. He’s acting like Jimmy never even stopped by. There goes Ashton’s attempt to get the story that he’s been dying to know for the past couple of months. Ashton’s not a pushy guy, not really, so he lets it slide and prepares himself for whatever subject change Luke has in store for them.

“You should go out with me tonight,” says Luke, and that’s not what Ashton expected at all.

Ashton’s stomach jumps to his throat. He feels a little faint, and he holds his breath, and he forgets his curiosity. He’s a little confused. He could have sworn Luke was in a relationship with either Calum or Michael—he’s still not entirely sure exactly _which_ one Luke actually goes home to—but it sounds an awfully lot like Luke’s asking Ashton out on a date.

If that were the case, Ashton would say yes in a heartbeat. He’s practically swooned over Luke since the moment they met a couple of months ago when Luke had stumbled right into the half-empty corner office with bright eyes and an eager grin and an unexplained feud with their supervisor. However, the names _Michael_ and _Calum_ volley around in Ashton’s head, and they’re enough to keep Ashton quiet—to keep him from immediately jumping the gun and saying yes in an embarrassingly squeaky voice that gives away the schoolboy crush he’s got for Luke. It’s a miracle, really, that he doesn’t humiliate himself before Luke’s done talking, because the next few words that fall from Luke’s mouth make it entirely clear _it’s not a date_.

“I’ve been talking you up to Mikey and Cal for ages, and they’re dying to meet you. We’re all going to head out and see that new movie. You know the one. _Voodoo Doll_ , I think it’s called? You should totally hang out with us.”

“Yeah totally,” echoes Ashton over the sound of his heart shattering in his chest. It’s stupid to have such a reaction, and he is painfully aware of this, but he’s never been good at settling for looking but not being able to touch. He’s made it a habit to avoid spending time with Luke outside of work, because he really, really likes him. He knows that Luke doesn’t like him back—can’t—and even if he did, possibly, think Ashton might be a pretty good kisser, he’s got no reason to want to find out.

Ashton’s seen pictures of Calum and Michael. They’re plastered all over Luke’s desk and Luke’s computer and Luke’s cellular phone, even. The two of them are the epitome of hot. Ashton sometimes feels insignificant in comparison to their _pictures_. Michael’s got wild hair that he dyes different colors whenever he gets the fancy, and he’s got an eyebrow piercing. Calum has the prettiest smile Ashton’s ever seen, aside from Luke’s, and he’s so artfully stained with tattoos that Ashton feels self-conscious about the tiny one he has on his wrist. So, yeah, Luke has no reason to ever want to kiss Ashton when he’s got Michael or Calum to choose from.

“Great! How does eight sound? It’ll give me time to swing by the house and drag Mikey away from _FIFA_.”

“Huh?” asks Ashton for the second time in the span of ten minutes, and this really is a new record for him. He tears his gaze away from the photograph on Luke’s desk. It’s Luke’s absolute favorite, apparently, and Ashton thinks it might be his, too. It’s nothing fancy, just Michael, Luke, and Calum sprawled out on a couch in somebody’s house—theirs, maybe—and they’re not paying the camera any attention. Luke’s half-asleep on Calum’s shoulder, his legs in Michael’s lap, and they all three look so content that Ashton really, really can’t tell which one it is that Luke’s dating.

The corners of Luke’s eyes have gone all crinkly again when Ashton finally turns his gaze on him. He doesn’t seem offended that Ashton’s zoned out on him again. He even seems to find it amusing, and it’s just another stupid reason for Ashton to like him more. Ashton needs to get a grip on himself. He’s a grown man. He does his own laundry, and he cooks meals for himself, and just the other day, he learned how to work the new trash compactor down from his apartment. He’s way too old to fall in love with somebody as unattainable as Luke Hemmings.

“Eight o’clock at the theater downtown? The one with the atrocious bright red lights all over the front? Is that a good time for you?”

It’s then, and only then, that Ashton finally realizes he’d agreed to go on a date with—no, that’s not right—that he’d agreed to _hang out_ with Luke and Luke’s housemates. Ashton’s eyes widen, and he wishes he hadn’t been too lazy to put in his contacts this morning, because he’s fairly certain he looks like a disfigured fish with his eyes like this behind his stupid glasses. That’s really the least of his problems. The bigger issue here is the fact that he’s sentenced himself to an evening of purgatory. To an evening with Luke and the man Ashton wishes he could be: his boyfriend.

“Yeah—yeah. Totally cool. I’ll be there with bells on,” says Ashton brightly, and then he cringes for two reasons. One, he’s a complete dork, and he’s just proved it to Luke. He’s just said _with bells on_ , an idiom no respectable person under the age of sixty should really have in their vocabulary. Two, he’s completely incapable of saying no to Luke. He’s a nice person in general, of course, but he’s inhumanely unable to bear the thought of not making Luke happy.

He is definitely _too_ old to be this hung up over the very-much-already-taken Luke.

* * * * *

Ashton shows up to the cinema at precisely seven fifty-three, and he’s got half of the mind to just turn around and pretend like he never came to begin with. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing here. The evening is unlikely to be enjoyable with Ashton pining after Luke while Luke’s boyfriend is right there to remind Ashton everything that he can’t have. So, yeah, maybe he should just leave, but he doesn’t. He’s a nice person.

He waits patiently in front of the cinema. It’s a cool April evening, the night chilly enough that he’d worn a sweater. It had bells on it, a gag gift from his brother two years ago. Ashton had thought it was appropriate when he’d left his apartment, but now that he’s standing all alone on the sidewalk waiting on Luke, he feels a little foolish.

“You weren’t lying about the bells,” says a familiar voice.

Ashton looks up from his sweater to see Luke grinning at him. His cheeks flush, because he still feels a little stupid for actually sticking to his flippant promise earlier. He shifts uncomfortably in his clothes and almost wishes he were anywhere else. Then the two figures behind Luke step into the light from the streetlamp above them, and Ashton’s attention immediately snaps to them. His heart skips a beat in his chest. Twice.

Michael and Calum are so, so handsome in real life. Luke’s photographs don’t even do them justice. Ashton thinks it’s unfair, really, that Luke gets to live with these two beautiful people—that Luke himself is a beautiful person, too—when Ashton looks like a cave man first thing when he wakes up in the mornings, and he’s got this stray curl that never stays in place. In front of him now are two perfect embodiments of the human race.

Michael’s hair is blond now. Ashton doesn’t remember Luke telling him Michael had changed it from the black it had been, but he looks stunning with it. Ashton wants to run his fingers through it, and it’s such a sudden desire that he has to stuff his hands into the pockets of his jeans to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid like actually _pet Michael’s head_.

Ashton turns to look at Calum instead, because surely he can control himself a little better around Calum than he can around Luke or Michael. The chances have to be in his favor. They’re not. Because somehow despite Luke’s lip ring and Michael’s hair, Calum can still give them both a run for their money with his tattoos and his blue sweater and the beanie shoved on top of his head.

Ashton thinks he might hate them all for being so stupidly pretty.

Luke goes through the fanfare of introducing them all, though Ashton’s almost certain nobody really needs it. He knows who Calum and Michael are just by the way Luke goes on about them—knows, even without having seen their photographs to put names to faces, that Michael seems quieter than Calum but is actually ten times snarkier than everyone else in the vicinity. He’s pretty sure Michael and Calum know who he is, too, if the obnoxious grins they give Luke before they go in for a hug, at the same time, from Ashton is any indication.

Michael and Calum move like a single, cohesive unit so quickly. Ashton finds himself trapped by two pairs of arms. It’s intimidating at the beginning, being so close to Calum and Michael who should be strangers to him. But after the initial shock wears off—after Michael manhandles Ashton into returning the hug and wrapping his arms around both of them—Ashton realizes it’s not that at all. He’s listened to Luke go on and on about Michael and Calum so much that they’re not strangers. Not at all. It’s like they’re old friends. The hug feels natural. It feels just right in a way that first hugs never should.

Which might be why Michael is totally comfortable with cheekily grabbing Ashton’s ass as they step away from one another.

Ashton yelps, batting away Michael’s hand, but Michael barks out a laugh. It’s so loud and full of life that Ashton forgets his surprise and has to laugh along with him. Truth is, he hadn’t minded the way Michael’s hand felt. He’d just been startled, and somehow, without Ashton even needing to clarify it, Michael had figured that out all on his own.

“You’ve been naughty,” says Michael to Luke but his eyes are on Ashton, running all over his body, “keeping Ashton away from us for so long.”

Ashton’s sure that he’s blushing from his head to his toes, but it’s nighttime, so he hopes they don’t pick up on it. He doesn’t think it really matters, though, because Michael’s turned his attention to Luke, and nobody’s looking at him anymore. On one hand, he’s relieved. Michael’s gaze carries an unfamiliar type of weight that’s overpowered by some secret that Ashton’s not privy to, and he only knows that there is a secret by the tense set of Luke’s shoulders. It’s a dead giveaway. He’s holding himself just like he does every time Jimmy comes into the office, only he’s much more relaxed around Michael and Calum.

(On the other hand, he’s a little put-out that nobody is paying him any attention now. He’d liked having Michael look at him, even if he felt like a mismatched fool in a stupid sweater and his glasses.)

“You know why that is,” says Luke, voice quiet like he wants to speak to only Calum and Michael but doesn’t want to be rude and exclude Ashton. His gaze flashes to Ashton then, and it’s too dark for Ashton to properly make out the expression on his face, but it’s reminiscent of those crinkly-eyed smiles he loves so much.

“And I’d say, so far, it’s going well,” says Calum, and Ashton feels like he’s catching the tail-end of an old conversation. Calum’s smiling, though, so Ashton doesn’t think it’s anything bad.

Calum’s the one who realizes that they’re going to be late for the eight o’clock showing. He reacts to this by grabbing Ashton with one hand and Michael with the other and tugging them both toward the ticket booth like the street’s on fire or something. Ashton lets himself be dragged away, throwing his hand back toward Luke to latch on as well. Luke does, and he grins, his lip ring glinting in the horrible red lights lining the front of the building. Ashton gets lost in the beauty of it, wondering once again what it might be like to kiss Luke with that ring.

It’s not until they’re seated in the far back row in the tiny, nearly empty theater that Ashton realizes he hadn’t paid for his ticket. Calum had. Ashton should thank him or offer to pay him back or something, but Calum’s sitting on the other side of Michael from him. The opening scenes of the movie have begun to roll anyway. It’s a cardinal sin to talk during the movies, or at least Ashton hates it when other people do, so he sits back in his seat and watches a faceless actor sew together the beginnings of a voodoo doll.

The movie is probably good, but Ashton hardly watches it. He has a hard time concentrating on it with Luke seated on his right and Michael on his left. He thinks it’s odd that Luke isn’t sitting with either Calum or Michael or maybe in the middle of them. He’s dating one of them, after all, but he doesn’t seem bothered.

Halfway through the movie, Luke throws his arm over the back of Ashton’s chair. It’d be such a cheesy first date move if it weren’t for the fact that this is clearly _not a date_. Ashton’s heart stutters anyway. For a split second, he allows himself to indulge in the fantasy that this actually is Luke making a move, but his illusion is shattered when he sees Luke’s fingers dance across Michael’s shoulder. Ashton sighs, disappointed, and his cheeks flush with embarrassment at his grade school reaction to Luke.

He’s solved one mystery at least. Luke is totally dating Michael. That information should sit well with him. He likes Michael, after all. Luke and Michael are both very attractive men, and Ashton has to admit they make a beautiful couple, but it’s still like nails on a chalk board. Jealousy pools in the pit of his stomach, but he slouches down in his seat so that Luke can reach Michael better. It’s the least he can do for them since he’s essentially third-wheeling himself right between them.

That should be it. Really it should be. But it’s not. Luke’s arm follows him down. It’s laid across Ashton’s shoulders now, and his fingers are still brushed against Michael, and Michael makes an adjustment for the new position, leaning closer to Ashton so that Luke can reach him better. Michael’s head in practically laying on Ashton’s shoulder, and Ashton sits stock-still, too terrified to move. His skin feels like it’s on fire from Michael’s touch, even through the thick fabric of his sweater. He really wishes he’d forgone the stupid thing in the first place, because he’s burning up now.

Everything is a jumbled mess. Nothing makes sense, even though he could have sworn just a moment ago that it did. But it doesn’t. Because Luke’s got his arm thrown across Ashton’s shoulder, and Ashton’s basically Michael’s own personal pillow right now, and when Ashton looks beyond Michael to Calum—to see how Calum’s reacting to all of this going on right next to him—things become even more confusing.

There on the arm rest is Calum’s fingers laced with Michael’s.

Ashton’s not so sure who is dating who anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

When Ashton wakes up the next morning, he’s still confused. He lies in his bed staring up at the ceiling, his mind filled to the brim with the memories of last night. He hardly recalls the movie, but he can still feel the ghost of Luke’s arm stretched around his shoulders. He still remembers how Michael had lit a fire across his skin and how nice Calum’s arms wrapped around him in a hug had felt. These are the things he’ll probably carry with him for a long time to come.

Ashton doesn’t have the luxury of time to wallow around in his latest crisis. He needs to get up and get ready for work. He can’t seem to make his body cooperate with his priorities. He’s going to see Luke first thing. Ashton’s not sure why he feels so nervous about facing Luke this morning, but anxiety strums across his skin.

(Except he does, in fact, know why he’s nervous. Some teeny, tiny part of him that might not be so teeny or so tiny keeps forgetting that last night _wasn’t_ a date. Because the thing is, it had ended up seeming like one. Michael had felt him up, and Calum had bought his movie ticket, and Luke had done the cheesy, first day over-shoulder-stretch. That’s pretty much what first dates are all about, at least in Ashton’s experience. It’s difficult, therefore, to remember that whatever last night was, it wasn’t a date. He can’t exactly go a date with _three_ other people. It’s preposterous.)

Ashton still has a pressing issue, even after the conclusion of last night. He’s not entirely sure who Luke is dating, because as many signs as there had been that it’s Michael, there had been just as many that Michael is dating Calum, and it’s all so confusing in Ashton’s head. He doesn’t know how to ask to find out for certain now without looking like a total ass. Up until last night, he could have just thrown it in and claimed to have gotten Calum and Michael confused in the midst of Luke’s rambling tales about their latest laughs. He doesn’t have that excuse anymore, because Calum and Michael are night and day from one another. Complimentary. Polar opposites.

Something akin to jealousy pools in the pit Ashton’s of stomach as he thinks about Luke, Michael, and Calum. He hastily pushes the feeling away. He tells himself it’s because it’s inappropriate to have a crush on his coworker, especially when said coworker is already taken by someone else. He doesn’t admit to himself that he shoves aside the jealousy for another reason as well. That he shouldn’t have a crush on someone, or rather _two someones_ , he met not even twelve hours ago.

The worst part of it all—the thing that is truly worrisome as far as the state of Ashton’s sanity goes—is that he’s not entirely certain exactly _who_ he is most jealous of.

It’s much too early in the day to have an inner crisis of this magnitude, especially about his coworker and two men he’s just met but feels like he’s known forever. He hasn’t even had his coffee yet. He’s useless before his morning jolt of caffeine, so he crawls out of bed to go perk a pot. Coffee solves all of the world’s problems. Or at least makes Ashton’s kind of, sort of, maybe, tiny problem of uncontrollable schoolboy crushes seem a little less daunting.

It’s like he’s thirteen again and realizing for the first time that he thinks Patty Montgomery, who sits three desks in front of him in history, is pretty with her pink bows in her hair and her Coldplay notebook. He was a blundering mess back then, and he was one last night, too, around Luke, Michael, and Calum.

(It’s a little morbid to compare his current situation to what happened with Patty, but he can see the similarities. She was way out of his league. Tall and beautiful and rich, she hadn’t even looked twice at him, not with his pimply face and his ugly glasses. Now, more than ten years later, he still gets the errant pimple on his forehead, and he’s only recently learned how to properly groom his beard. He can’t ever keep up with his contacts, so he’s stuck wearing his glasses. Admittedly, the pair he owns now are more suited to his face than the ones he thought were _so cool_ when he was thirteen. Essentially, there’s nothing about him that’s more tempting than Michael or Calum or even Luke for any of them to look at Ashton twice. So, yeah, it’s just like the Patty situation all over again.)

He feels a little more human when he’s got a cup of coffee in his system. He pours the rest that’s in the pot into a thermos. He doesn’t add his favored sugar and cream mixture into it, because he’ll end up giving half of it to Luke, who never wakes up early enough to perk his own pot—or maybe he does, and he’s just got better things to do with his time like kiss Michael or Calum, whichever one it is that he actually gets to kiss. Ashton wouldn’t blame him for choosing kisses over coffee, especially not since Luke’s got him for the coffee part.

That’s just great, he thinks sarcastically. Luke has Michael or Calum for kisses, and all Ashton is good for is a cup of coffee that’s exponentially better than the awful brew that’s in the break room. Ashton feels stunningly useful on this bright and sunny morning.

But the ear-to-ear, crinkly-eyed grin Luke gives him the moment Ashton offers up his thermos later, after they’ve both settled in for the work day, erases some of Ashton’s cynicism. Luke drinks the coffee eagerly. He doesn’t bother with any frills, just takes it black and doesn’t even cringe at the bitter taste. Ashton can’t stomach straight coffee. He busies himself with fancying up what’s left in his thermos and tries not to think that this should be awkward, sitting here with Luke after last night, but it’s not. It feels like any other day, only now every time Ashton glances at one of the pictures of Michael and Calum on Luke’s desk, a fond smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

“You made quite an impression on Mikey and Cal,” says Luke. He makes a face at the amount of sugar Ashton spills into his coffee like he’s personally offended anybody would want to do anything to the drink. He has to look away when Ashton adds cream to it, too. He meets Ashton’s eyes instead, his own large and blue and all too easy to get lost in. “They wouldn’t shut up about you, actually.”

“I was impressed with them, too,” says Ashton, and he cringes, because, really, the word _impressed_ just makes him sound like a dork. Maybe it’s true that he’s socially incapable of ever being the _cool guy_. Maybe it’s also true that he’s always tripping up around Luke, so it’s probably not all that surprising that the word _impressed_ is even in Ashton’s go-to vocabulary, but he’s still not over his dumb decision to wear that stupid sweater with the bells on it last night. Sometimes, Ashton should think things through a little more before he jumps head first right into them. “I had fun last night, and I’m glad that I finally got to meet them.”

“Yeah?” asks Luke, sounding uncharacteristically unsure. He runs his tongue along the loop of his lip ring in that endearing nervous manner of his, and Ashton’s eyes follow the movement, mesmerized. “Good. I’m glad you got to meet them, too. In fact, we should hang out again tonight—unless you have, you know, other plans for your Friday night?”

Ashton hesitates, his heart pounding in his ear. The word _yes_ is on the tip of his tongue, but something is holding him back. He’s having that moment again, just like yesterday, when he’d thought it sounded like Luke was asking him out on a date. It sounds like that again. Luke’s skin is tinged pink, or maybe it’s a trick of the light. Ashton’s mouth feels dry. He had a good time last night with Luke, Calum, and Michael. Really, he did—in fact, he can’t recall another evening that he enjoyed himself more—but he’s not so sure it’s a good idea to hang out with them again tonight. Not if his crush on Luke isn’t lessening. Not if he’s also developing schoolboy crushes on Michael _and_ Calum.

It won’t end good for him. Someway, somehow, it’ll blow up right in his face. Ashton just knows it.

“I—I dunno. I’ve got to—” he falters to a halt, his mind blank. He can’t think of a single excuse to give Luke. The truth is that he wants to say yes more than anything in the world, confusing emotions aside. It doesn’t help that Luke’s eyes are so, so wide and filled with hope right now that Ashton’s brain is virtually fried. He tries an alternative tactic. “I mean, I don’t want to intrude.”

“C’mon, Ash,” says Luke, and Ashton has to physically stop himself by biting down hard on his tongue to keep from asking Luke to say his name like that again. To maybe never stop saying it. “You won’t be at all. It’ll be good fun. Mike and Cal basically told me earlier I couldn’t come home tonight unless I brought you.”

Ashton isn’t sure whether or not Luke is joking, so he offers him a weird half-smile just in case Luke isn’t. Luke grins, all crinkly-eyed like he knows how weak Ashton is for it. Ashton finds himself nodding. He’s so gone for Luke it’s not even funny, and he can’t bring himself to think about why that’s such a bad thing in this moment in time. Really, he’s useless against the crinkly-eyes.

Luke cheers his victory, throwing a fist up in the air. He lurches forward to snatch his phone from where it’s stowed away behind his keyboard. He spends half of a moment typing furiously away at it.

“’M texting Mikey to tell him the great news,” he says without prompt.

Ashton nods again, mindless, but he hadn’t thought it was his place to ask to begin with. His chest feels all warm and fuzzy at Luke’s candidness. He likes how open Luke is with his thoughts and the goings-on in his life. It’s partially how Ashton felt like he already knew Michael and Calum when he met them last night. Luke likes to share his life with Ashton, but he likes to share Michael and Calum even more.

Luke’s phone dings with a response almost the exact second he lays it down, like Michael had been waiting impatiently for Luke’s message. Luke glances at the screen. He barks out a laugh, picking back up his phone. He shoves it in Ashton’s face, so eager that Ashton has to lean back from it so that he can see it properly.

It’s a picture of Michael and Calum’s faces squashed together. They’re grinning—or as much as they can with their cheeks pressed against the other’s—and the single caption of the picture is a tiny red heart. Ashton tries to push aside any inappropriate thoughts about Calum and Michael. They’re not his to have. One of them already belongs to Luke, and it’s absolutely, completely unfounded of Ashton to wish he belonged to them, too. Or to Luke. Really, he shouldn’t even fantasize about such.

Fantasies have a sick way of biting him in the ass—of tearing him down to nothingness—when reality proves them impossible. He’s never before been presented with something so unobtainable or so hopeless. The cold, hard truth of it is that neither Luke nor Calum nor Michael would ever want Ashton. There’s no reason to want him. Not when they have each other or basically everyone else in the entire world they could ever want. Ashton wouldn’t even have a chance with whoever it is Luke isn’t dating. There’s nothing about Ashton that Michael or Calum would want when they could have so, so much more in pretty much anyone else.

So, yeah, Ashton can’t let himself even fantasize about Luke or Calum or Michael.

Ashton pushes aside his entirely inappropriate thoughts of what it might be like to kiss Michael or Calum, and he glances up at Luke instead. He’d thought it was the better option, especially since he was getting embarrassingly close to drooling over the piercing in Michael’s eyebrow. Seriously, Ashton has never met anybody who could pull it off as well as Michael can.

But looking at Luke isn’t any easier. Ashton’s breath catches in his throat at the soft glint of unadulterated love shining in Luke’s eyes. For a fraction of a second, Ashton is stupid enough to get his hopes up. He’s stupid enough to believe Luke is looking at _him_. But Luke’s not. He’s looking at the picture of Michael and Calum that Ashton is holding. When Ashton remembers himself, he feels a stab of jealousy that Luke’s soft gaze isn’t directed at him. He’d give pretty much anything to be the object of Luke’s heart, but he’s not. It’s Michael or Calum. They’re the lucky ones.  

“We should—we should get some work done,” Ashton proposes, turning around to face his desk so that maybe Luke won’t see the blush that’s burning in his cheeks. He’s mostly gotten control of the jealousy that’s buzzing underneath his skin, or so he tells himself as he places the phone on the corner of Luke’s desk. He glances at the picture of Michael and Calum one last time. It’s hard to feel too jealous when he doesn’t know exactly _who_ it is he’s jealous of.

Mainly, he turns away, because if he spends any longer staring at Luke, he might do something dumb like reach over and pull him in for a kiss. The fond glint in Luke’s eyes is doing all sorts of bad things to Ashton’s sanity. He knows it’s not for him, knows that he’s nowhere near lucky enough, but his heart doesn’t seem to care. It just likes Luke, plain and simple... or maybe not so simple anymore, not since Ashton finally met Calum and Michael in the flesh.

It’s not right for Ashton to be this hung up on so many people who aren’t even available for the taking.

Luke doesn’t oppose the idea of beginning work, but maybe it’s because it’s a Friday, and he’s already had most of his workload finished since Wednesday. Ashton doesn’t really understand how Luke can work so fast. Ashton himself is horribly slow, and he’s still catching up on reports that should have been done two weeks ago. He supposes, as he glances over at Luke for the sixth time in the span of forty-five minutes, that he might be more efficient himself if he didn’t waste half of his workday staring at Luke like a preteen experience his first full-blown crush.

Ashton likes his work. It’s technical, and every piece of paper that crosses his desk is a new puzzle he gets to solve. He likes making a game out of it. Likes it when he’s arrived at the final answer. Likes it when he knows he’s right. As much enjoyment as he gets out of the work, though, he knows when it’s time to take a break. He knows when he’s been sitting for far too long. His butt starts to go numb, tingling with pins and needles. He pushes back his current project. Luke immediately glances over at him, eyebrows raised.

“I’m going to get a snack out of the vending machine,” says Ashton. The clock on the wall suggests they’re both long overdue for a lunch break anyway. “Want something?”

“Nah, mate. Cal packed me a lunch today,” Luke responds, kicking at the mini refrigerator setting in the floor between their desks. Ashton hardly ever uses it. He’s never awake enough in the mornings to remember that he should probably take lunch to work, so he’s usually sentenced to whatever looks halfway appetizing in the vending machine in the break room.

Ashton gets up from his desk, and he has to fight the surge of irrational jealousy rising in his chest. He’s got no reason to feel jaded that he’s got nobody to pack him a lunch. He’s got even less of a reason to wish that it was Calum who did it for him. It is totally inappropriate. He has only met Calum once—although, admittedly, Ashton developed a schoolboy crush on him almost instantly. Ashton really, really needs to get a handle on his feelings. He can’t go around falling in love with every pretty person in Luke’s life.

He ducks out of his tiny shared office before he can do something ridiculous like _ask Luke to ask Calum to make him lunch for Monday_. He’s sure that would go over so well. As much as it feels like he already knows Calum, they are acquaintances at best. Acquaintances don’t just ask each other for lunches. He shakes his head at himself and wonders why he’s so stupendously pathetic. He can’t just be cool and think that Luke’s friends are nice people. No. He’s got to have dumb, irrational feelings about them both.

In the break room, Ashton makes a bee line for the vending machine. Cassidy from the office by the elevator and Martin from the tech center are seated around the table. Ashton only knows them in passing and from the office Christmas parties. They’re nice enough. Cassidy always greets him with a kind smile whenever he walks past her office in the morning on his way to his own. Martin was helpful the other day when Ashton’s computer gave him the blue screen of death. Ashton offers them a polite _hello_ as he passes the table, but he’s halfway distracted, already eyeing the selection of snacks from the machine.

“Got any plans for the weekend, Ashton?” asks Cassidy, raising her sweet voice so that it carries above the hum of the large refrigerator in the corner of the room.

Ashton glances over his shoulder at her. She’s beaming at him, her lips painted bright red to offset her pale cheeks and pitch black hair. He can’t help but to think her smile has nothing on Luke’s crinkly-eyed one. Still, she’s nice.

“Yeah, actually,” he answers, because there’s no reason to lie. If he’s being truthful to himself, he kind of wants to brag a little bit that Luke’s asked him to hang out this evening, even if neither Cassidy nor Martin knows he’s bragging. He likes being liked, and he likes Luke, and he likes Calum and Michael. “I’m hanging out with Luke tonight.”

The smile drops from Cassidy’s face, but Ashton barely notices it. He turns back around to the vending machine. He could go for some chocolate, or he could be a little more adult and choose something with a little more sustenance. But he really wants the chocolate.

“Hemmings?” asks Martin.

Ashton hums in his throat. It takes him a second to realize Martin needs clarification. He’s confused. He didn’t think there was another Luke who worked here. He glances over his shoulder to catch Martin and Cassidy exchange looks of disgust. He spins all the way around, feeling indignant on behalf of Luke.

“Is that a problem?” he challenges, folding his arms across his chest. He’s not normally one for confrontation, but he doesn’t like the looks on their faces, especially since it’s a response to Luke’s name.

“Oh, no,” says Cassidy, but it’s obvious from her voice that it is. Her lips are turned down into a frown. The look of disgust hasn’t yet completely left her face. “Just wouldn’t you rather do something else tonight. Marty and I and a few others here at the office are going to catch that new movie, _Voodoo Doll_. Why don’t you come with us?”

Ashton bristles at the delivery of her proposition. Cassidy thinks she’s doing him a favor, like hanging out with Luke is the equivalent going to the dentist. Worse than, maybe. Fury coils in the pit of Ashton’s stomach. It rises to his chest, and he’s not much of one to bow to his anger in the heat of the moment, but this time he can’t help it. They’re _insulting_ Luke.

“I’d much rather spend my evening with Luke,” he says, voice cold. He doesn’t have much of an appetite anymore, so he walks away from the vending machine without purchasing anything. He needs to get away from here, away from Cassidy and Martin, away from the hostility. Mostly, though he wants to get back to Luke, wants to see the crinkly-eyed smile and not the unfriendly faces in the break room. “And I’ve already seen that movie. Saw it last night with Luke, actually. The lead girl dies in the end.”

He gets more satisfaction than he should for spoiling the ending. He starts to leave, to take his victory, but Martin’s words chase after him. His blood runs cold.

“Better watch your ass tonight, Irwin. You never know _who_ might take it—or, rather, how many.”

Ashton falters, almost tripping over himself. He keeps walking at the last second. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t understand why Cassidy and Martin are so anti-Luke or what Martin had meant by his parting words, but he doesn’t want to admit that he’s curious. He doesn’t want to give them the upper hand, not after they insulted Luke. He puts one foot in front of the other, his shoulders tense with anger, and he doesn’t stop walking until he reaches his chair. He sinks down into it, dropping his head back against the top of it. He stares up at the ceiling, the leftover anger continuing to simmer in his stomach.

“You all right?” asks Luke.

Ashton turns is head so that he can see Luke, and Luke’s looking right back at him with concern written plainly all across his face. He’s holding himself as if he’s debating whether or not to reach out and offer a friendly hand. Ashton almost wishes he would. He kind of wants to touch Luke right now, to ground himself in something that isn’t anger.

“Break room was full,” he says, because he doesn’t want to tell Luke the truth, that he’d stormed out of it. That people had unkind words to say to him. That those words had been about Luke. That Ashton still kind of wants to know exactly why Martin and Cassidy had the unkind words to begin with. So it’s easier to keep things simple, even if he doesn’t like lying to Luke.

But maybe Luke hears what Ashton doesn’t say anyway. Luke glances toward the doorway, an unreadable expression shadowing across his face. It’s gone when he looks back at Ashton. In its place is another smile, one that’s meant to be comforting but actually isn’t at all. Not to Ashton, who has learned exactly what Luke’s fake smiles look like. This is a prime example of one. Luke’s eyes don’t crinkle in the corners. The smile is distorted a little, because Luke has a bad habit of chewing on the inside of his bottom lip when he’s forcing himself to grin. Ashton mostly sees a smile like this whenever Jimmy stops in the office to harp on Luke. It looks so out of place now. Ashton doesn’t like it at all.

“Cal packed an extra sandwich,” says Luke, and it sounds like an apology for some reason. Like he knows exactly what had gone in the break room. Like he thinks it’s his fault. “I guess he thought I’d get super hungry—either that or Michael bribed him to make it look like he helped with my lunch. You want it?”

Something heavy settles over Ashton’s heart at Luke’s resolve to pretend he’s naïve. For a fraction of a second, Ashton considers barreling right through Luke’s faux ignorance. He can’t bring himself to in the end. He’s a little haunted by the shadows that had danced across Luke’s face, so he pushes aside his own curiosity in deference to Luke.

Ashton feels like laughing at the absurdity of Luke’s offer. He’d moan on about wishing Calum would fix his lunch, and then Luke has to go and offer him his extra sandwich. The warm fuzzy feeling of fondness curls in Ashton’s chest, eating away at the lingering anger. Ashton can’t say no to Luke. He never has been able to, but he really can’t now, since there’s nothing he’d rather have than some of the lunch Calum carefully packed Luke.

When he takes his first bite of the sandwich a few minutes later, it tastes just like he knew it would: homemade, delicious, and, most importantly, just like love.


	3. Chapter 3

Ashton isn’t entirely sure what he expected when he agreed to hang out with Luke after work, but it’s not this: being picked up outside of the office by Michael in a sleek black car. It’s like a scene out of the movies. For a split second, when Luke holds open the front passenger’s side door for Ashton to crawl inside of the cab, he’s struck with the idea that this is a date. It’s not, of course, but it sure feels like it. He starts to sit down but catches the oddity of Luke’s offer at the last second.

“Wouldn’t you rather...?” asks Ashton, waving helplessly toward Michael and the empty seat as if to convey _sit by your boyfriend_ without actually having to say the words out loud. He’s still not entirely sure if it is indeed Michael whom Luke is dating. It is Calum, after all, who makes Luke lunch every day without fail.

“You’re the guest. You’ve got shotgun,” says Luke, like it really is that simple.

He pairs his statement with that crinkly-eyed smile of his, as if he knows exactly how much power he yields with it. He’s shameless. He steps forward to put his hands on Ashton’s shoulders and gently guide Ashton into the cab of the car. Ashton goes easily, pliant underneath him. Luke smells like the office but also like the cologne Michael had worn to the movies last night, and Ashton goes embarrassingly weak at the knees for it.

Once Ashton’s seated, he assumes Luke will stop there. Luke doesn’t. He reaches across Ashton with the seat belt and fastens it for him. Ashton’s heart skips a beat in his chest, and he freezes. He doesn’t dare look at Michael, not at first. He can’t wrap his head around how _gentle_ Luke is being with him right in front of Michael. A spike of guilt shoots through Ashton. He feels off-kilter in the worst of ways. This right here, it’s not a typical friendly gesture. It’s something more, or so it seems. Surely, Luke doesn’t do this for all of his friends.

The seat belt clicks into place, but Luke doesn’t lean back out of the car. He crowds farther in. For a split second, Ashton thinks Luke might kiss him right now before Michael. Luke doesn’t. He reaches for Michael’s hand and brings it to his mouth and softly presses his lips to the back of it. Ashton’s face flushes, humiliation washing all over him. Of course, Luke was just looking for an excuse to get closer to Michael.

Ashton feels out of place, like the extra puzzle piece in a box of a thousand that doesn’t fit into the final picture.

“Get in, you sap,” murmurs Michael.

It’s fond, oh so fond, and Ashton’s eyes snap to Michael’s face, and Michael’s looking at Luke like he’s the meaning of life himself. Ashton feels a little bit of camaraderie with Michael. He thinks Luke is the center of the universe, too—only Ashton’s pretty sure Michael doesn’t feel an immediate spike of guilt for thinking such forbidden thoughts about Luke in the first place. Michael actually has the right to look at Luke like that. Probably. At least, Ashton is almost certain he does.

“It’s good to see you, too, Mikey,” says Luke, withdrawing from the car. He shuts the door then climbs in the back, sliding to the middle seat so that, once he’s buckled up, he can lean forward and talk to the others without too much trouble. “Where’s Cal?”

“At home, probably cooking in the nude,” deadpans Michael.

Luke groans, falling back into his seat and muttering to himself that Calum had better be dressed appropriately when they get home. Michael barks out a laugh as if that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day. He puts the car in drive and pulls out onto the street. In the backseat, Ashton sees Luke typing away at his phone, presumably texting Calum.

“So, Ash, Lukey says you were quite smitten with Cal and me last night.”

All of the blood in Ashton’s body rushes to his cheeks, and his attention snaps back to Michael, whose own eyes are on the road ahead of them. There is a careful set to Michael’s jaw, like he’s holding back from grinning ear-to-ear, and Ashton feels humiliation dance all over him. He feels like Michael can see right through him. Like Michael knows exactly how hung up on Luke Ashton is. Or maybe, just maybe, how hung up on _Michael and Calum_ Ashton is after only meeting them last night. Either scenario is horrifying.

Ashton shouldn’t want what he can’t have, especially not if Luke is already Michael’s and Michael is already Luke’s. Ashton considers throwing open his door and jumping out of the moving car to avoid the awkwardness of this moment altogether, because he can hear the loaded meaning behind Michael’s question. One look at the speedometer, however, makes him think twice.

“I—I—I don’t think I said that?!” squeaks Ashton, as if stuttering alone isn’t embarrassing enough. Eyes wide, he swivels around in his seat to shoot Luke a _help me!_ look.

“Stop being a dick,” Luke tells Michael. There’s a warning edge to his voice that disappears in the next second when he looks back at Ashton. “And those weren’t my exact words, I swear.”

“Might as well have been,” says Michael, incorrigible. He glances in the rear view mirror to meet Luke’s eyes, and a brief, silent conversation passes between the two as Michael waits on the red light to turn green. He returns his attention to the road when the traffic in front of him begins to move again. “Last night was fun, though, yeah?”

The question’s directed at Ashton, obviously. Michael sounds so casual, like he doesn’t really care about the answer but wants to make small talk instead. His knuckles are white around the steering wheel, however, and his shoulders are tense. Both belie how concerned Michael actually is about Ashton’s response.

“The best,” answers Ashton truthfully. It’s as hard to lie to Michael as it is to Luke, and the idea of giving any other response leaves a bad taste in the back of Ashton’s mouth. He’d enjoyed last night, hanging out with Luke and meeting Calum and Michael. There’s no sense in pretending otherwise.

“Good,” says Michael, and that’s the end of the conversation. He changes the subject to ask Ashton and then Luke about their days. He’s extra attentive to their boring stories—because, really, nothing too exciting happens at the office. He hums in all of the right places and even grins over at Ashton when Luke tells him what happened to the extra sandwich Calum had put in his lunch. “That was totally all of my doing.”

Luke coughs in the backseat, and it sounds a lot like he says, “ _Liar_ ,” but Michael doesn’t take offense. He continues to grin at Ashton like there’s nobody else in the entire world—which would give Ashton a little more satisfaction if it weren’t for the fact that Michael’s eyes are most certainly not on the road like they should be. Miraculously, Michael keeps with the flow of traffic. He even hits his brakes within an appropriate reaction time when the car in front of him signals to turn across the road.

“It was good, right?” asks Michael, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself. Admittedly, Ashton hasn’t known Michael for very long, but he doubts Michael is the type of person who seeks validation very often. Here he is, though, asking Ashton about the extra sandwich as if the answer really is important. “Like you wouldn’t have preferred pickles? ‘Cause Cal thought you might, but I said nobody likes pickles with turkey, and he didn’t believe me. I actually had to hide the pickles in the crisper just so he couldn’t add them, but don’t tell him I did that. He hates it when we move things around in the kitchen.”

“No, I don’t actually like pickles,” says Ashton. After a beat, he picks up on the most interesting part of Michael’s statement. He turns around in his seat to face Luke. “Wait—was that extra sandwich meant for me all along?”

Startled, Luke’s mouth drops open. He stares wide-eyed at Ashton, and his cheeks start to darken in a blush. He glances helplessly toward Michael, who is looking at him through the rear-view mirror. Michael’s eyebrows are raised, the piercing in the right one emphasizing his expression of disbelief.

“You didn’t tell him?”

“He said Calum packed an extra one, so it’d look like you helped out with his lunch,” confirms Ashton. He looks over at Michael, because Luke isn’t doing anything other than gawk at him.

“You know, I take offense to that. Occasionally, I actually _do_ help Cal pack lunch—like this morning, for example,” says Michael. He turns on his blinker and hits his brakes, slowing the car down so that he can turn off the main road into a subdivision. He deliberately pays more attention to the drive than he has been this entire time, and Ashton thinks if he looks close enough, he can see a blush tickling Michael’s cheeks, too. “Yeah, the sandwich was for you the entire time. It’s just—Lukey mentioned you don’t have anybody who packs you lunch, and it’s gotta suck, you know, to not have somebody like that, and I—it was stupid.”

“It wasn’t,” says Ashton immediately.

He reaches out and lays his hand on Michael’s arm without even realizing that he’s moving at all. Once it’s there, it feels _right_ to comfort Michael, so he doesn’t snatch his hand back. He digs his fingers into the soft fabric of the blue sweater that Ashton swears is the same one Calum was wearing last night. He doesn’t dwell on that thought. He doesn’t linger on the idea of Michael stealing Calum’s clothes and what it might mean and why it’s not Luke’s sweater that Michael’s wearing right now.

There is something bigger at play here than Michael’s choice of clothing. Michael has just admitted that Luke talks about Ashton in great detail. Sure, on some level, Ashton knew that. Luke’s said as much, and Calum’s and Michael’s reactions to Ashton last night had suggested familiarity. Neither Calum nor Michael had treated him like a stranger. Quite oppositely, they’d let on as if they’d known Ashton for as long as Luke had. Maybe longer, even.

Beyond the friendliness, Ashton hadn’t considered Luke might talk about the little things about Ashton to Michael and Calum. Like how he survives off the cracker snacks from the vending machine at work. Or maybe how he takes his coffee, all sweet until the bitterness is completely gone. Or maybe how, after a long day of staring at the computer screen, he has to take his glasses off and set them on the desk so that he can let his eyes rest. Ashton hasn’t considered it, but Michael makes it seem like Luke has been collecting all of these little things about Ashton over the past couple of months, just like Ashton himself has been doing all along about Luke.

“It’s the nicest lunch anybody’s ever packed for me—the only, probably,” he goes onto say. He’s not even sure he ever took a packed lunch to school when he was a boy, as his mother always worked early in the morning and never had a chance to fix one. As he’d gotten older, he hadn’t picked up the habit. He never even realized he was missing out on anything until Luke had stumbled into the office on that very first day with a packed lunch and a thousand watt, crinkly-eyed smile. “Thank you for doing that. I think you might’ve spoiled me today.”

“Good,” says Michael. “You’d better get used to it.”

Ashton doesn’t have a chance to ask why, because Michael turns the car into a driveway and immediately cuts the engine. Ashton’s query becomes lost in the jumble of his thoughts as he takes in the house before him. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s certainly more impressive than Ashton’s own one-bedroom apartment. It has a small front yard and stepping stones leading up to the door to the house. It looks like what Ashton imagines a proper _home_ would.

“C’mon,” urges Michael, already getting out of the car. “Cal’s probably got dinner finished by now.”

Luke opens the passenger’s side door, and he offers his hand to help Ashton to his feet. Ashton accepts it. He tries to ignore the tiny nagging thought in the back of his mind that this still feels like a date. Because this isn’t a date. It can’t be, but Luke doesn’t let go of Ashton’s hand as they walk side-by-side to the house. They only separate when Luke steps forward to hold open the door for Ashton. Michael has already barreled on inside, yelling Calum’s name in his eagerness. Ashton likes Michael’s enthusiasm, and he tries to focus on that energy instead of how Luke’s hand finds its way to the small of Ashton’s back as he ushers Ashton through the foyer into the open common area.

At first glance, Ashton thinks Calum’s naked. He’s not. He wearing a pair of trackies low on his hips. Ashton freezes at the sight before him. Luke’s hand is still splayed across the small of his back, but he makes no attempt to push Ashton farther into the kitchen. The two hover on the outskirts of the room, on the other side of the center island.

Michael is draped over Calum, muttering into his ear. His voice is too quiet for anyone else besides Calum to hear him. His lips are so close that it almost looks like he’s pressing soft kisses into Calum’s neck. Calum leans into him, soaking in the kisses and revealing more of his bare shoulder, smooth and toned, for Michael to nip at.

Ashton’s stomach flip-flops. He looks over his shoulder at Luke to gauge his reaction, wondering how Luke is reacting to his boyfriend snuggled up so intimately with Calum. Luke doesn’t seem bothered. He even has a soft, fond smile on his lips. It’s a minuscule step away from that crinkly-eyed one . Not for the first time, Ashton is confused. He gets a trickling feeling that maybe, just maybe, he’s missing out on something. As it is right now, he doesn’t understand how Luke can be so comfortable with Michael all over Calum, barely a second away from sucking a bright red hickey at the base of Calum’s neck.

“Ash doesn’t like pickles, Cal,” says Michael.

He pulls away from Calum slightly so that he can speak. He’s quiet, too, out of deference for Calum, as if Calum is something precious. After a beat, he turns Calum around so that he can nuzzle into Calum’s chest. He’s too tall to do so properly, but Calum opens himself up to give Michael room. Michael sighs, contented. Calum wraps his arms around Michael to keep him close, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Michael’s head.

They look like the perfect picture of a couple, and Ashton wonders how Michael can be so brazen with his affections to Calum in front of Luke.

“I guess that’s why I found the jar of them in the refrigerator drawer, isn’t it?” asks Calum.

He smiles down at Michael like Michael is the only person in the room. In the world, maybe. Ashton thinks it’s rude of Calum, and of Michael, to be so inconsiderate of Luke’s feelings. When Calum looks up at Ashton and Luke, the tender expression on his face softens but doesn’t go completely away. At first, Calum only has eyes for Luke. There’s something familiar in the intensity of Calum’s gaze that Ashton can’t really identify. He doesn’t have time to place it, actually, because Calum looks to him next, and Ashton completely forgets how to breathe for at least three seconds.

Calum’s eyes are so, so intense, and Ashton’s struck with the clear understanding of how anybody— _everybody_ —could fall in love with Calum at first sight.

“It’s good to see you again,” Calum says. “Lukey says you had a good time last night?”

Unconsciously, Ashton leans farther back into Luke’s hand. Calum’s and Michael’s eyes both follow his movement. Ashton doesn’t even realize he’s done anything until suddenly Luke’s breath is hot on his neck. It feels so good that Ashton almost loses himself to it, the hot puff of air like the caress of a lover. Ashton shivers but, in the next second, remembers himself. He locks eyes with Michael. It’s a cruel reminder that Luke isn’t Ashton’s, and Ashton steps abruptly away from Luke, out of his reach

Ashton he doesn’t think his cheeks can get anymore red. He’s shaky all over, too, trembling in the wake of his moment of weakness. He pushes his glasses up his nose to have something else to do other than to linger on the fact that Luke hadn’t tried to move away at all.

“Yeah, it was—it was great,” says Ashton, voice wobbly as he tries to get a hold of himself and his stupid feelings and his runaway thoughts. “Thank you for, you know, asking.”

Ashton cringes, silently berating himself for, well, existing in general. He’s pretty sure he couldn’t come across as any less _uncool_ if he were actually trying. The thing is—and Ashton can lie to himself about this all day long, but it won’t change things—he kind of, sort of, _really_ likes these people. Just in general. Beyond his sexual attraction to them, he likes them for who they are. For Luke’s crinkly-eyed smile and for Michael’s brash attitude and for Calum’s soft gazes. He barely knows any of them. Even with Luke, Ashton has only recently been introduced to the man outside of the office. But Ashton is falling stupidly fast for them all.

He’s pretty sure it’s a one-way street. That’s what makes it worse. He knows that he’s nowhere near as physically attractive as any of the others in the room. It’s just a fact of life. It’s something that been Ashton’s reality for as long as he can remember. He hasn’t thought much of it since he left behind his awkward teenage years when he struggled to come to terms with who he was and the body he was growing into. Now, with Calum and Michael and Luke looking undeniably handsome before him, Ashton feels like he’s that awkward sixteen-year-old again and he’s figuring out that he’ll never, no matter what he does, be as good looking as he always dreamed he would be.

Even more so than his looks, Ashton knows he’s got nothing appealing to offer Luke or Calum or Michael, not even from a friendly perspective. He’s not one of those men who go out on the weekends and raise hell with the other lads. He likes staying at home and messing around on his drum kit or calling up his family to check in with them. He doesn’t do anything exciting. He’s got a boring office job, and he takes public transportation wherever he needs to go. He doesn’t own anything flashy or awe-inspiring. His apartment is barely anything more than a small living area and an even smaller bedroom. It’s certainly nothing to impress anybody with. The truth of it all is that Ashton’s just a simple guy who likes music and has never mastered the art of making friends.

But he wants to be everything for these people. For Luke and Michael and Calum. He wants to be cool. He wants to make Luke smile all crinkly-eyed. He wants to make Michael laugh, so full of life and vibrant. He wants to make Calum look at him like he’s the beginning and the end of all things that are good in the world. That’s what Ashton wants. He’s never wanted anything more, not even when he was ten and begging his mother for the cool bike in the shop window down the street from his school.

Just like that bike, Ashton knows he can’t have them.

Ashton’s never gotten what he wants.

“The roast will be done in a few minutes,” says Calum to the general room. “I love you guys, but get out of my hair so that I can finish it.”

He untangles himself from Michael with an air of reluctance. Michael doesn’t go easily, but Calum placates him with a quick kiss to his cheek. Ashton glances at Luke, but Luke is already ambling toward the couch. He doesn’t appear fazed at all by Michael and Calum’s affections. He hasn’t this entire time. It’s confusing, yes, but Ashton is starting to feel a little less surprised every time something happens. Maybe that’s just how Michael and Calum are. Maybe that’s their friendship. Maybe Ashton should stop over-thinking things and take them as they are.

When Ashton turns back around to offer his help to Calum, however, his stomach drops to the floor. A mixture of horror and anger tangle in his chest. He’s rooted to the spot, frozen again in the span of just a few minutes. He can’t look away at the awful sight he’s presented with, and he should look away. But he can’t. He should stop it—ask what the hell is going on—but he doesn’t. He stares, his heart pounding in ears. He hopes and prays that Luke doesn’t turn around.

Here, right out in the open for anybody, especially Luke, to see, is Michael and Calum with their lips locked together, kissing each other like it’s their only purpose in life. Calum has crowded back into Michael’s space in the few seconds Ashton had turned away from them. Gone is his reluctance. In its place is unadulterated passion.

Calum’s his hands are on Michael’s hips, fingers digging possessively into the fabric of the long sweater. The kiss itself is heated. It screams of familiarity. It’s fiery, high-strung with a weak-at-the-knees fervor, and Calum kisses Michael like he draws air into his lungs: like his very existence depends on their lips dancing together. For his part, Michael feeds right into it, trying to press himself as close to Calum as he can possibly get. Like, if he tries hard enough, they can mold into the same being. Into _MichaelandCalum_ where nothing else matters.

Ashton feels like he’s intruding, like he’s witnessing something entirely too private for his eyes. He thinks again that he should turn away, but he doesn’t. Reality catches up with him, and he remembers the fond glint that appears in Luke’s eyes whenever Luke talks about Michael. It hits him like a punch to the gut. Ashton really, really doesn’t understand how somebody can be so lucky to have Luke think they hung the stars yet throw Luke’s love right back in his face. Insult Luke by making out with his best friend. Doing it over and over and over again—shameless—like their familiarity suggests.

Red-hot anger washes over Ashton in waves. He can’t help himself any longer. The question slips out of his mouth before he’s even aware that he’s spoken, his voice shrill against Michael and Calum’s passion.

“What the hell are you doing?”


	4. Chapter 4

Calum and Michael jump apart as if they’ve been burned. They turn as a single unit to face Ashton and, in doing so, brush their shoulders together. It’s like they can’t bear to be apart even now in the face of Ashton’s indignation. Their lips are puffy, red, and slick with each other’s spit. Calum, for his part, says nothing. He only stares at Ashton, eyebrows furrowed. Michael, on the other hand, ignores Ashton altogether. Instead, he turns to Luke, who stands frozen in front of the couch.

“You didn’t tell him.”

It’s not a question, but it kind of sounds like it should be. It does nothing to clear up Ashton’s confusion. He glances over his shoulder at Luke, expecting to see Luke enraged right now. After all, Ashton’s just drawn attention to the fact that Luke’s boyfriend was sucking face with Luke’s best friend. Luke should be raging mad. He should be stomping across to Calum and throwing a punch right across his jaw—or something along those lines.

But he’s not. He’s staring wide-eyed at Michael, face full of fear. His hands tremble at his sides, so he balls them into fists. It does nothing to stop the quivering. Ashton feels even more confused. Luke isn’t saying anything to clear up Ashton’s confusion, to explain why he’s so blasé about Michael and Calum making out. Ashton turns back around to Michael. Out of all of the others, he seems to be the one most inclined to talk.

“Tell me what?”

“Fuck, Luke,” says Michael, immediately. He ignores Ashton, except to glance briefly at him. He really only has eyes for Luke. “It’s been two damn months, and you can’t talk about anything but him, and you haven’t fucking told him about us? Why d’you—why d’you _always_ set yourself up for heartbreak?”

Underneath the thick layer of confusion that has cloaked Ashton’s entire body, something in his chest flutters at the revelation that Luke talks about him often—nonstop, even. He wants to latch onto it, feed into it, ask Michael exactly what Luke says about him. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t understand a single thing that is happening right now. It’s like when he took that French class back in college and didn’t understand a word his professor said the entire semester.

“Shut up, Michael,” snaps Luke.

Ashton almost wishes Luke hadn’t spoken at all, because Luke’s voice is all wobbly, and Ashton’s pretty sure Luke’s eyes are starting to redden with tears. It’s a little hard to see for sure all the way across the room, but Luke is blinking his eyes furiously as if he’s trying to keep his tears at bay. Ashton wants to comfort Luke right now. He doesn’t like how _raw_ Luke sounds or how vulnerable he looks standing stock-still staring at Michael.

“You always do this,” says Michael, not listening. He barrels on ahead like this is an old argument between the two. Like Luke is frequently this pitifully vulnerable and it kills Michael to see him like this. “You always chase after what you can’t have, and you don’t leave us behind, and you always get yourself fucking hurt, and it sucks.”

“I’m sorry I’m an inconvenience to you, Michael,” says Luke, face closed off. He crosses his arms over his chest, intending to look stern, but it looks like he’s hugging himself instead. Like he’s half of a second away from breaking completely down right before them all. “Maybe you should just, I dunno, leave me behind instead.”

All of the anger rushes out of Michael like the air out of a popped balloon, and he stumbles forward, away from Calum. He reaches for Luke even though Luke is an entire room and a half away from him. There’s a frown on his face. His lower lip trembles. For a moment, he says nothing, stunned to silence.

Behind him, Calum is similarly disturbed by Luke’s retort. He stands a little straighter, shoulders tense. He sets his jaw firmly, like there are a thousand things he can say right now but doesn’t, because this tango is Michael and Luke’s alone.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that. Ever,” says Michael, voice barely above a whisper. It sounds like a threat, but it’s so overwhelmed by _love_ that it can’t be one. “Luke, I fucking love you, okay? Cal loves you, too, and we’re never, ever going to let you go. I just hate it when you go and do something like this—when you purposefully put off telling people the truth until it’s too late and you have to get hurt.”

Ashton glances between Luke and Michael like he’s watching a tennis volley, and he feels like he’s on the verge of an epiphany. Like there’s something unbelievably obvious dancing right before his eyes, but he can’t put his finger on it. He glances at Calum, sees the way Calum gravitates toward Michael, closing the space Michael had created.

He looks up to meet Calum’s eyes. Everything falls into place then, and Ashton flushes all over. He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it all along.

“You’re in a relationship. All three of you,” he says, the words falling out of his mouth as soon as they enter his mind. “Together.”

He’s met with silence. His voice almost echoes in it. Michael sighs, falling back against Calum. He glances at Ashton, but he doesn’t speak. Neither do Calum and Luke. That’s all right, though, because Ashton doesn’t need any of them to confirm his statement. The weight in the silence between them all is enough of an admission.

Ashton feels like a fool. It’s been there the whole time. In how Luke talks so passionately about Michael _and_ Calum. In the tons of pictures of all three of them on Luke’s desk, in Luke’s phone. In the way the three of them can’t keep their hands off each other, even for the slightest touch. In the snide, riddled comments of Luke and Ashton’s coworkers. It’s been so painfully obvious this entire time. Ashton has been too hung up on Luke to ever truly see what was right in front of him.

“I was going to tell you tonight,” says Luke quietly.

Ashton snaps his attention toward him, and Luke looks even more vulnerable all alone without Michael and Calum in this moment in time. He’s no longer trying to pretend like he’s not hugging himself to keep from breaking down. His fingers dig impressions into his shirt, his knuckles white. The first tear starts to trail down Luke’s cheek, and Ashton stares at the way the light glistens off the wiggly path it leaves behind.

“I didn’t want to—I didn’t want to scare you off,” Luke goes onto say. He seems to grow braver hearing his own voice or maybe through hearing the truth spoken out loud. “It’s not exactly normal, what Cal and Mikey and me have, and I didn’t know how to work it into a conversation. Like, I thought you knew at first? Because everyone else at the office did. You never mentioned it, so I assumed you did and that you were fine with it, but then you just kept asking about Mikey. How he was doing, and how the record store was doing, and how much he liked the date I’d taken him on. You never once asked about Cal in that context. I started to realize you thought it was just me and Mikey. I should have corrected you then, I suppose.”

Ashton nods, because Luke should have been straight-forward with him in the first place. Ashton skin still stings in humiliation, about the scene he caused just a few moment ago when Calum and Michael kissed and about his own ignorance to what’s been going on this entire time.

“It’s just—I really _like_ you, okay?” continues Luke. He quickens his pace now, frenzied by the precious revelation of the words. He holds Ashton’s gaze, but he looks like he could bolt from the room at any moment. “I really like you, and, at first, I felt so guilty about it. I already had so much. Mikey and Cal—I felt guilty, because I didn’t want them to feel like they weren’t enough for me, because they are. They’re more than I could have ever hoped for, but here I was hoping for somebody else, too. It was... It was awful.”

“ _He_ was awful,” inserts Michael, lips quirking toward a teasing grin even though the air around them is thick with tension. Behind him, Calum remains quiet. “Moping all the time. Keeping sex from us—I mean, Cal just doesn’t—”

But whatever it is that Cal doesn’t do, Ashton never finds out. Calum, cheeks a blazing color of red underneath his brown skin, slaps his hand over Michael’s mouth. Michael barks out a laugh behind it. The tension in the room dissipates instantly, unable to stand up against the pure joy that is Michael’s laugher.

Ashton can’t help but to grin. He glances at Luke out the habit of looking at him. Luke is grinning, too. Ashton takes a second then to push aside his own embarrassment and to put himself in Luke’s shoes instead. It’s hard to find fault in Luke’s tight-lipped treatment of his relationship with Michael and Calum. Even Ashton isn’t sure how he personally would have taken this news before he fell head-over-heels in love with Luke or before he met Calum and Michael and did pretty much the same.

“You should have told me,” says Ashton, and his voice immediately sobers the room. He winces. The tension is back. It’s heavy around them all again. Luke’s shoulders droop, as if the weight of the world has just been dropped on top of them. Ashton doesn’t like the frown forming on Luke’s face.

“I was going to,” says Luke, chastised. He looks at Michael and Calum, seems to draw strength from their loving gazes. When he speaks again, it’s to Ashton, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Michael and Calum. “That’s why—I mean, I wanted you to meet them first. I knew you’d—I thought it’d be easier to explain if you’d met them already, but it’s not really. It’s not at all.”

Luke scratches the back of his neck, and he looks so pitifully vulnerable that it’s like a punch to Ashton’s gut. Ashton has to look away, has to look at Calum and Michael, because surely it’s easier to look at them. It’s not, though, because they’ve still got hearts in their eyes for Luke, and there’s so much love in this room that Ashton’s not sure there’s any room for him at all. Luke speaks again, drawing Ashton’s attention back to him.

“I love Michael, and I love Calum, and I wanted them to like you, too. Because the thing is we’re a packaged deal. Maybe that’s weird to you, just like it is to everybody else, but that’s what we are.”

“It’s not weird,” says Ashton, speaking before he actually thinks about what he’s saying. Once the words are out there, though, he doesn’t want to take them back. Luke’s eyes dart to him, hope starting to stain his face. Ashton thinks he understands Luke more in this moment in time than he ever has. Something warm like desire bubbles in Ashton’s chest. He feeds into it, desperate to bow to it. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me at first.”

Luke furrows his eyebrows. He opens his mouth to speak, but Ashton holds up his hand, silencing him. Ashton needs to get it all out now or he won’t ever be brave enough to say it again. To admit out loud the private thoughts in his head. To take the terrifying leap over the no-man’s land of chance that he’s going to fall flat on his face like always seems to do. He doesn’t know where he’s going to land this time, but he’s pretty sure Luke and even Michael and Calum will catch him. He hopes they do, anyway.

“You gave me the opportunity, I think, to fall unbelievably in love with you. I’m not going to lie. It was awful. I didn’t—I mean, I thought I didn’t have a chance with you, because you were so obviously in love with Michael—and Calum, too, I guess. I wasn’t completely sure _which_ one you were dating, but I guess it all makes sense now,” he says. He glances at the two in question and remembers the jealousy that had traveled along his veins when he’d thought they had what he’d never be able to have. Now, that doesn’t seem to be the case. He doesn’t even feel a ghost of that jealousy, and that’s just a nice thing in and of itself. “Then I met Michael and Calum, and it was all worse, because, _fuck_ , Luke. Couldn’t one of them, at least, have been unattractive? Or, like, have some totally annoying habit? Or something?”

“Calum talks in his sleep,” says Michael helpfully, voice muffled by Calum’s hand. He must lick it, because Calum jerks away his hand, grimacing. Michael grins over his shoulder at Calum. When he turns back to Ashton, the glint of adoration lingers in his eyes. “And I can belch the alphabet.”

“That’s not something to be proud of,” Calum mutters, but his words are loaded with fondness. He pulls Michael closer to him, Michael’s back against Calum’s front. He rests his chin on Michael’s shoulder. They make a good pair, the two of them, but there’s something wrong with the picture of the them without Luke.

There’s a beat of silence then Luke speaks.

“Did you mean it? Do you—do you love me?”

There’s a heaviness to Luke’s question that Ashton doesn’t quite expect. Ashton stumbles involuntarily away from him. His own words catch up to him, and he’s just admitted to the room at large that he’s fallen in love with Luke and that he thinks Michael and Calum are hot. He realizes with a sick pang in his stomach that this isn’t something that normal people say out loud. That sometimes Ashton’s awful tendency to favor candidness causes him to say things that aren’t really allowed to be spoken. Ashton’s entire body is a blush. He stutters around for a moment. He kind of wants the floor to swallow him whole.

“Ash, did you mean it?”

But still, Ashton can’t speak. The truth is that he did mean it. He’s fallen in love with Luke, and he’s done so against the misunderstood odds of not being able to have him. But the horrible reality of Ashton’s life up until now is haunting. He doesn’t get what he wants. Ever. He didn’t get a cool bike for his tenth birthday, and he didn’t get to kiss Patty Montgomery at the winter dance when he was a pimply-faced thirteen year old. There’s no reason to think—to _hope_ —that he’d get to love Luke, either.

“You can, you know,” says Calum quietly, like he’s a mind-reader. Ashton whips his head around to face him. Calum hasn’t moved away from Michael. His chin is still resting on Michael’s shoulder. His eyes are kind, so kind that Ashton almost gets lost in the depths of them. “Want Luke, that is. And Mikey. And—well, I mean, you can want that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting what you want as long as everybody else wants it, too.”

“And everybody does,” says Michael. His voice is soft like Calum’s, and he leans farther back into Calum like Calum is his own personal life force. It’s a heartwarming sight. Michael’s face is so open, so full of sincerity that it’s almost hard to correlate him with the very same person who claims he can burp the entire alphabet.

It loosens the knot of anxiety in Ashton’s chest, silences the doubts in his mind. He nods his head on autopilot. He looks back at Luke, because he supposes it’s only good manners to address the one who’d originally posed the question. He thinks about that bike and about Patty Montgomery, and he thinks _fuck it_.

It’s now or never. Luke seems to think so, too. He stands a little straighter, entire body rigid as he prepares for the Ashton’s answer. His eagerness makes it easier for Ashton to push the forbidden words past his lips. To allow himself to have something that he wants.

“Yeah, I meant it. Damn, Luke, you don’t know how much I meant it.”

Luke’s relief is instantaneous. He stumbles toward Ashton, and Ashton meets him halfway. The first touch between them is electric. Ashton’s entire body buzzes. He’s got an armful of Luke, and he has to close his eyes to just soak in the moment. He’s so overwhelmed.

This can’t be his life.

He’s got to be dreaming.

But when he opens his eyes again, Luke’s still right here in front of him, barely inches away. It’s hard to concentrate on Luke’s entire face, because they’re standing so close. Their entire bodies are pressed together. Luke’s tongue darts out to lick across his lip ring, and Ashton’s gaze flashes down to follow the movement. Ashton’s own mouth goes dry. Luke’s lips stretch into a smirk, and he laughs, his breath puffing against Ashton’s chin. Ashton wants to kiss him—to feel the jewelry pressed against his own lips—so he does.

Kissing Luke is... Ashton doesn’t even have words. It’s everything he’s ever fantasized and then some. Luke’s lips are soft. The ring is cooler than he expects. Ashton can’t keep from running his tongue over it, just to feel the metal. Luke gasps into the kiss. Ashton deepens it, drawing Luke in until he’s sure the two of them will just mold into one entity.

“That’s fucking hot,” says Michael. It sounds far away to Ashton’s ears, like Michael is speaking into a tunnel. “I thought it was hot when you and Luke kissed, Cal, but fuck me right now. This is damn near as good—maybe better.”

Luke breaks the kiss, but he doesn’t pull back. He laughs into Ashton’s mouth, and when Ashton finally regains his senses—finally remembers that the world exists beyond Luke’s amazing mouth—he becomes distinctly aware that Michael and Calum have moved closer to them. Ashton draws away from Luke so that he can see Michael and Calum, still standing as a cohesive unit, right within reaching distance. Michael’s grinning ear-to-ear, a hungry glint in his eyes. Arousal pools in Ashton’s belly. Nobody should look as good as Michael does right now, interested and shameless.

“Luke said we were a packaged deal, yeah?” prompts Michael. He says it in a jesting manner, like it’s nothing more than a joke to him. Like whatever Ashton’s response will be can’t hurt him. But the glint of uncertainty in his eyes give away his true fear that Ashton only wants Luke, not him and Calum, too.

It’s a ridiculous fear. Ashton thinks about telling him as much, but he doesn’t. Michael doesn’t seem like the kind of person who likes airing out his insecurities, so Ashton answers him in the only other way he knows how. He leans in for a kiss, intending only on a short peck of their lips against each other’s, but once he’s there, Michael takes control. He doesn’t let up.

Michael kisses like he talks—proud and brash and passionate. He’s cheeky with his kiss, darting his tongue into Ashton’s mouth when Ashton lets out an involuntary gasp. It’s so overwhelming that it’s all Ashton can do to hold his own, to kiss Michael back just as passionately as he’s being kissed. Their angle is odd. Luke and Calum are still very much trapped between them, but it doesn’t feel _wrong_ like Ashton thought it would in the fantasies he’s had of kissing Michael since they met last night. It feels... It feels like they all belong right here together.

Ashton and Michael break apart for want of air. Ashton’s knees are almost too weak to support his weight, but Luke’s still clinging to him, so Ashton leans on him for support. Michael settles back around Calum like their bodies are made to be wrapped together. For a moment, nobody moves. Everything is perfect. They stand four-strong and untouchable.

The moment is ruined, however, by the sharp, piercing sound of the smoke alarm going off. Ashton’s struck dumb by the sound, but Calum curses. He twists out of Michael’s arms and dashes over to the oven. When he throws open the door, smoke billows in his face. The roast is blackened in its pan. Calum curses again, taking the ruined roast out of the oven and dropping it noisily on top of the stove. He kicks the oven door shut before bracing himself on the counter next to him, head bowed in defeat and shoulders a tense line.

Michael walks over to him, careful like he’s approaching a dangerous animal. He drapes himself back over Calum and begins to mutter soothing words into Calum’s ear. They’re too quiet for Ashton to hear all the way across the room, but Calum begins to relax into Michael. After a beat, Luke extracts himself from Ashton to join them. He goes to Calum’s other side. He wraps his long arms around the both of them. The tension in Calum’s shoulders slowly dissipates underneath Michael and Luke’s loving hold.

They look perfect tangled together. There is no other word to describe them. There’s an air of familiarity about this, and it strikes Ashton that they’ve probably done this—comforted each other—a thousand times before in the years before he came along. That tiny voice pops up in the back of Ashton’s mind again. It tells him that he doesn’t belong here. That he can’t have what he wants. That they’ve done fine this long without him.

Then Luke looks up, his lips pressed against Calum’s temple, and meets Ashton’s eyes. Ashton’s feet propel him across the kitchen to the trio of them without his conscious decision to move. When he reaches the others, he hesitates. It’s still not clear to him where he fits into their nice, little huddle of comfort. He reaches out anyway, almost on instinct, and lays his hand flat in the middle of Calum’s back. Immediately, Calum leans into him, and Ashton can’t resist the urge to step even closer. His shoulder brushes against Michael’s.

“’M sorry, Ashton,” mutters Calum, looking over his shoulder to meet Ashton’s eyes. The movement makes him lean farther into Luke’s hold, and Michael follows him instead of allowing distance between them. “I worked all afternoon on that roast for you.”

Ashton’s heart skips a beat. He wants to kiss Calum right now, wants to erase the frown from Calum’s lips. He doesn’t. Kisses can’t fix everything. The obvious anguish on Calum’s face, the furrow of unhappiness between his eyebrows, tells Ashton just how disappointed Calum is in himself. Ashton glances at the roast. He picks up a fork abandoned on the stovetop next to it, and he pokes at the charred meat.

“I reckon it’s still good in the middle,” says Ashton. The potatoes and carrots and onions in the pan, though, are probably completely unsalvageable. He doesn’t say as much to Calum. He’s trying to be helpful here. “It still smells delicious.”

It doesn’t, but the smile Calum gives him in response is reward enough for Ashton’s lie. Calum snuggles into Luke’s arms then nuzzles against Michael’s cheek then untangles himself from all of them. His fingers brush against Ashton’s as he steps away to tend to the roast. It’s the slightest of touches. Ashton craves more, but Calum is already out of his reach by the time Ashton realizes he could have had more.

As Calum hacks away at the roast, Ashton makes himself useful helping Michael and Luke set the table for their meal. Ashton doesn’t have a clue where anything is in their kitchen, but he does all right finding the plates in the second place he looks. Luke helps Michael pour their drinks. They all work flawlessly together, like this is a daily occurrence. Like it’s totally normal for the four of them to be so comfortably domestic. Ashton thinks he can get used to this.

It’s only after he has sat down around the tiny circular table, Luke and Michael on either side of him that he realizes he actually will have the opportunity to do just that—to get used to sharing his life with three other people. It’s exciting and terrifying and mind-blowing. He thinks about saying as much, but he meets Calum’s eyes across the table from him, and he thinks they already know. Maybe the three of them have sat down and talked about what making room for Ashton in their life together will mean. Maybe they’re scared, too. It’s less daunting to not be alone in his fears.

Ashton takes his first bite of the burnt roast. It doesn’t taste too bad, really, and he manages to swallow it without choking, which is always a nice compliment. He hurries to eat the vegetables, too. They’re a little harder to chew, but he doesn’t let on as if the meal is anything less than delicious. Michael and Luke follow Ashton’s lead, tripping over themselves to praise Calum for the dinner.

Calum takes it all in, grinning, and when he looks back at Ashton, his grin fades into a smile. It’s soft and fond just like the one that Calum might give to Michael or to Luke. Ashton’s breath catches in his chest, and any doubt that lingers in his mind that he can’t have this is silenced.

This really is his life.


	5. Chapter 5

Falling in love with Luke was simple. Effortless. Some of it was doubtlessly love at first sight—that wonderful, adrenaline-filled split-second of _oh, holy crap, this man is gorgeous_ —but most of it came in waves. The crescendo of a powerful love song. The push-and-pull of attraction. It was just Ashton going into work every day with a smile on his face knowing that he would see Luke. It was Luke laughing and joking with him like old friends. It was everything in between.

But falling in love with Michael and Calum... it’s scary.

They’re physically two different people. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that. Michael and Calum act like a single, cohesive unit more than anyone Ashton’s ever met. He thinks he understands exactly how Luke fell in a relationship with them, how easy it was to transition into a trio from a duo, because even from the very beginning, it was always _MichaelandCalum_.

It’s easy, sort of, when it’s all four of them spending time together. That’s how they normally do things. Luke and Calum and Michael are already so dependent upon one another that it’s almost like they physically cannot bear to be apart. Ashton has become just as bad as them, needing to be around all the other three as much as possible. It’s the joy of new love, and that’s what this is between Ashton and the others.

(There’s a tiny voice in the back of Ashton’s mind, still, that questions whether or not he’s alone in this—if the others really miss him when he’s gone home for the night or if they don’t even notice he’s no longer there. Usually, it’s easy to keep that voice at bay, to drown it out in the larger-than-life presence of the other three, but when Ashton is back home, alone in his own bed, that voice becomes harder to ignore.)

Ashton strolls into work on a typical Friday, spirits high with the knowledge that he’s got a whole weekend ahead of him to spend with Michael and Calum and Luke. He whistles along to the tune of the song that is playing in the lobby as he rides the elevator up to his floor. Cassidy is already in for the morning. She’s always been prompt, though, and she calls out a greeting to him. He offers her one back but doesn’t stop to chat. He’s got a thermos full of hot coffee in his hand, and there’s a wonderful man waiting in his office for it.

Luke looks particularly dashing today. Ashton thinks so even when he can only see the back of his profile. Luke swivels around in his chair when he hears Ashton enter their office. He immediately grins, excited, and his eyes crinkle around the corners. Ashton wants to kiss him full on the mouth right now, but he settles for a quick press of his lips against Luke’s forehead when he hands over the coffee. Luke tenses at the contact as he always does. The grin on his face fades ever-so-slightly.

It’s been two weeks, and Ashton knows the rules—he knows Luke doesn’t like public displays of affection, especially at the office—but it still sends a pang through his heart like it did the first time he’d went in for a kiss here at work and Luke had instantly stepped away.

“You should be more careful,” says Luke, echoing his words from that very first time, and still Ashton doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with wanting to kiss him. “Thank you for the coffee, though. Cal made you a sandwich this morning. Ham and pastrami, mayonnaise but no pickles. It’s in the refrigerator.”

Ashton’s mouth waters in anticipation. He’s come to learn that Calum is something like a magician in the kitchen. He’s sort of an amateur chef who could probably make it as a professional one with how delicious his meals are. It doesn’t matter what he cooks, really. Even something as simple as a sandwich, which he packs for Luke _and_ Ashton every day without fail, tastes heavenly. Ashton could fall in love with Calum for his cooking skills alone.

Michael, on the other hand, can barely boil water without burning it—or himself.

Luke splits the coffee with Ashton. He wrinkles his nose in distaste when Ashton adds his frills to the drink. It’s a fond look, though, so Ashton doesn’t take offense. It also helps that Michael, too, likes sweetened coffee, and Ashton’s seen Luke regard Michael with the same amount of disapproval. Secretly, Ashton likes knowing the little things about Michael and about Luke and about how they and Calum interact with one another.

 “So, before I forget, I’m heading down to see my parents this weekend. Mum called last night and said my brothers would be in, and she wants the whole family together,” says Luke.

He runs his tongue over his lip ring like he always does when he’s nervous. Ashton really wants to reach over and kiss the anxiety right off his face. He doesn’t. That’s not allowed, not here at least, so, instead, Ashton busies himself with stirring his coffee to resist the urge. He hums in his throat to indicate he’s listening.

“But, like, it’s totally fine for you and Cal and Mikey to hang out this weekend?” mumbles Luke, and Ashton’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be a statement of reassurance, but it comes out more like a question. Like Luke thinks Ashton doesn’t want to spend time with Calum and Michael if Luke himself isn’t there. That’s preposterous.

It’s true, of course, that Ashton prefers it when they’re all four together, but he’s hung out with Luke and Michael separate from Calum before as well as Luke and Calum separate from Michael before. It’s only to be expected, then, that he and Calum and Michael would spend time together without Luke, too. It’s fair. The three of them have time without him—the others do live together, after all—so it’s not an unprecedented idea for it to be three of them enjoying each other’s company for a little while instead of all of them.

But, still, there’s something odd about one of them missing. They’re all in this together. The thing is, this relationship won’t work any other way. If they don’t trust each other, they’ll crash and burn before they have a chance to see where this relationship goes. It’s got so much potential, even now only two weeks in. They’ve all four got to be in it one hundred percent. Ashton is. He’s devoting himself to this relationship, because he really, really likes Luke _and_ Michael _and_ Calum, and he—somehow—is lucky enough to have all of them at the same time.

“Go and enjoy time with your family. We’ll be all right on our own for a couple of days,” says Ashton.

He’s an optimistic person by nature, so it’s an automatic response, but it doesn’t change the fact that he knows they will be. Their relationship as a foursome is growing. It’s becoming stronger by the passing day as they begin to settle in with one another. While Luke is the reason Ashton fell in with the other three, Ashton really likes Calum and Michael, and they like him, too, and they’re certainly capable of surviving without Luke for a little while. Besides, Ashton suspects they’ll all bond over mutually missing Luke.

“As long as we keep Mikey away from the stove and all other heat sources,” adds Ashton after a moment just to garner a laugh from Luke, because Luke still looks hesitant. Ashton doesn’t like the quiver of uncertainty in Luke’s bottom lip.

Ashton is rewarded with Luke’s bark of laughter almost immediately, and any doubt that was once on Luke’s face is gone now. Luke grins, all crinkly-eyed, at him once more. That’s the last they talk about their weekend plans. Ashton doesn’t ask why Luke is going back to his childhood home alone. He wants to, because he’s never known Luke to go anywhere without Calum or Michael or both of them, but he suspects he might already know the answer.

He thinks Luke might purposefully be removing himself from the relationship to give Ashton a chance to bond with Michael and Calum. To give them all three the chance to get to get to know each other one-on-one like Luke and Ashton have been able to do this entire time. As much as Ashton is going to miss Luke, he appreciates the gesture. He likes Calum and Michael, but he’s not yet as comfortable with them as he is with Luke. They’re not easy like breathing—not yet—and Ashton desperately wants them to be. They have to be for this thing to work.

When Ashton unpacks his lunch later, there’s a corner of a piece of notebook paper tucked between the folds of the aluminum foil that’s carefully wrapped around the sandwich. Ashton plucks it out to read it easier, already suspecting who is responsible for it. He pushes his glasses up his nose, closer to his eyes. He’s right. It’s from Michael, obvious by the messy scrawl alone, and it says _Tell Luke you love him. Come over at 5. – Mikey_.

Ashton would go to the end of the earth for Michael already, if he so asked; therefore, Ashton doesn’t hesitate to look up at Luke and dutifully say, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” responds Luke, purely on instinct.

He falters after it, though, confused as to what’s brought on such a declaration. It’s not like it’s the first time Ashton has admitted such a thing. It’s not even the first time they’ve said it to each other. Usually, though, there is some build up to it, like a kiss goodbye just inside of the front door of the others’ home whenever the night hour is so late that Ashton has to return to his own apartment.

Luke’s eyes flash down to the torn piece of notebook paper Ashton still has clutched in his hand. His confusion wanes. He chuckles to himself, eyes bright and so full of love. He’s just as hung up on Michael as Ashton is—but worse.

“Mikey got his hands on your lunch again, didn’t he?”

“He’s left me a note every day,” confides Ashton, though Luke already knows as much. Still, Ashton is proud of them. Each and every one of them—even the one from Tuesday that had simply said _Miss you_. Ashton had stared at it all afternoon, unable to look away from it, thinking _me, too_. When he saw Michael later that evening at the house, he’d kissed him first thing. He’d been thinking about it all day.

Ashton likes that Michael goes out of his way to write these little notes. It’s nice. Nobody’s every really cared enough about Ashton before to be sweet with him. But Michael does, and he does it shamelessly. Ashton likes it so much. He likes that Calum makes him lunch and that Michael writes him secret messages and that Luke shares his days with him. He likes it, because he’s always wanted someone to do these things for him, but nobody ever has until now.

Luke doesn’t have a note in his lunch, but he says it’s because he took a shower before Michael did this morning, and Michael hates that. Ashton chuckles along with Luke, because it’s expected and because it’s funny. It’s all so domestic. But it’s also a side of Luke and Michael and Calum that Ashton doesn’t get. He feels a little put-out, saddened by being the one missing from the sleepy mornings and the fights over showers. It’s a stupid tug of jealousy, really, because Ashton is brand new to this relationship. They’re not. They’ve been together for years. Of course, they’d share things amongst themselves that Ashton isn’t yet privy to.

It’s only slightly comforting that Ashton has that to look forward to—that one day he, too, can sleep wrapped up in Michael and Luke and Calum and that he, too, can experience the unfortunate luck of the draw to be the one to use the shower after Luke.

The rest of the day passes monotonously. Luke finishes his workload by two, but Ashton, ever the procrastinator, is still diligently working on it until it’s quitting time. Ashton doesn’t know how Luke does it, how he can breeze through the reports like they’re the simplest things in the entire world. Ashton struggles over the numbers sometimes, and he can never remember the specific codes without looking them up. Luke’s had them memorized since his third day here.

“Let’s call it a day, Ash,” says Luke. “I’ll drop you off by the house before I leave, if you’d like?”

Ashton very much would like, and he tells Luke as much. Luke grins, bumping their shoulders together as they wait for the elevator. It’s the most contact he ever initiates with Ashton at the office. Ashton almost melts into Luke’s side, so pathetically gone for him that he can’t help himself. He won’t get to see Luke all weekend.

“Hello, Ashton,” greets Cassidy, appearing behind them.

Luke steps away from Ashton, tense all of a sudden. Ashton shoots him a concerned look. His heart sinks in his chest, but he turns around to face Cassidy. It’s social protocol, so he plasters on a smile that feels fake on his lips. She doesn’t notice. He doesn’t want to be rude.

“A few of us are meeting up for drinks later,” she says, speaking straight at Ashton like Luke isn’t even there. “Thought you might like to join us?”

Ashton glances over at Luke, concerned for him and no longer worried about social protocol. Luke is chewing on his bottom lip. He has his arms wrapped around himself, and he’s trying to make himself smaller. Ashton winces at the sight. He wants so badly to draw Luke in a hug right now, because Luke looks just like he did two weeks ago when he stood all by himself in the face of Michael’s indignant anger for not telling Ashton the truth from the very beginning. The look does awful things to Ashton’s heart, beats it and batters it.  

“Nah, I’ve got plans, actually,” Ashton tells Cassidy, but he doesn’t take his gaze off Luke. He wishes they weren’t at the office right now or that Luke didn’t have his stupid aversion to public displays of affection. He really, really wants to comfort Luke. He can’t.

“Sure it’s not something you can ditch?” prods Cassidy.

Ashton’s gaze snaps to her. She’s scowling at Luke. It makes her look ugly like nothing else in the world really could. When she turns back at Ashton, the scowl is gone, but she doesn’t look any prettier. Ashton takes half of a step toward Luke, feeling the irresistible need to protect him and doing nothing to steer away from the impulse.

“Not if I can help it,” says Ashton. “I’m spending the weekend with—”

“Me,” interrupts Luke, glaring over his shoulder at Cassidy. His voice is cold, and his tone is challenging.  “He’s spending the weekend with me.”

“Oh,” says Cassidy, meeting his challenge. Her gaze flits between Luke and Ashton. “So that’s how it is. Didn’t realize that you would, uh, try to _taint_ the whole work place.”

Anger surges in Ashton’s chest. He’s not one to feed into it, usually, but the slight against Luke is clearly there. Ashton doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the malicious glint in Cassidy’s eyes. Even more, he dislikes the way Luke curls farther into himself at the mean words. Ashton opens his mouth to release his anger, to tell Cassidy that she _can’t speak to Luke like that_ , but the elevator dings. The doors split open. Luke steps in almost immediately and drags Ashton with him.

Cassidy doesn’t join them on the elevator, but she returns her attention to Ashton, and her voice is soft in warning when she says, “Watch yourself, Ashton. I’m not sure you know exactly what you’re getting into with someone like him.”

The doors shut together before Ashton can respond and tell her he knows exactly what he’s getting into. It shouldn’t be her concern what he does with his life, anyway. He doesn’t have time for the narrow-mindedness of other people. He has even less time for people like her who make an effort to brutally tear down Luke with their cruel words.

Ashton is still seething in anger, and Luke is still huddled in on himself. Ashton steps toward him, intent on hugging him until all of the tension leaves his body, but Luke steps away.

“Don’t,” he mutters, and he keeps his head bowed.

It hurts again, this rejection, but Ashton knows how stringent Luke is with his rule against public displays of affection. The fact that they’re alone in the elevator bears no weight. Ashton sighs, but he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t even let on how much he needs to touch Luke right now to quell the anger in his chest. He closes his eyes and counts to ten. When he opens them, they’re on the ground floor.

Luke is silent on their way to his car. He drove to work today, because it’s Michael’s day off from the record store. Ashton climbs in the passenger’s side. He thinks about bringing up Cassidy, about telling Luke that he hadn’t liked the way she’d talked about him, but Luke reaches for the radio dial almost immediately. Rock music fills the speakers. Conversation is impossible. Ashton could very well turn the volume down and chase the subject like a bloodhound after a scent. He doesn’t.

Halfway through the drive, Luke rests his arm on the console between them, his palm facing upward. Ashton takes it with no hesitation. He threads their fingers together. The last of the anger that’s been lingering in his chest dissipates. Luke shoots him a small smile at the next stop light. It’s tinged with apology that Ashton thinks is unnecessary.

When they get to the house, they have to let go of one another’s hands. Luke makes haste to circle around the car to help Ashton out. It’s a very gentlemanly gesture, and Ashton chances a kiss to Luke’s cheek. It’s the barest of touches of his lips against Luke’s skin, but it elicits a pleased smile from Luke. His rule against public displays of affection doesn’t extend to the boundaries of his home.

They’re separated again when they actually enter the house. Michael’s there immediately, like he was waiting on the other side of the door for them from the moment they pulled up in the drive. He ambushes them before they’ve shut the door, one arm around each of them to pull them into a group hug. He’s a little damp overall, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. He kisses them sloppily, one after another. Ashton kisses him back. Their lips brush together, but it doesn’t go any farther.

“You didn’t greet me this enthusiastically when I got home an hour ago,” says Calum from behind him. He’s standing in the hallway that leads to the private areas of their home. He, too, is freshly showered, his hair curly wet on top of his head. He’s wearing nothing but trackies hanging low on his hips. He looks gorgeous.

Michael extracts himself from Luke and Ashton. He ambles over to Calum, halting right in front of him. Ashton can’t see his face, but he knows there’s a mischievous smirk on Michael’s lips right now. He can see it in the glint of pseudo-apprehension in Calum’s eyes, the very same glint Calum gets whenever he knows Michael’s about to take the piss out of him.

“The blowjob I gave you ten minutes ago in the shower doesn’t count?”

 “You hummed the Pokémon theme song the entire time.”

“But I was enthusiastic about it,” says Michael, and he chases a kiss after Calum’s laugh, stealing it away in favor of pressing their lips together.

The kiss starts out fiery, like all do whenever Michael’s involved. It’s a fight for dominance that neither can win. Calum places his hands to Michael’s hips and draws them closer. He turns over control to Michael, and the kiss softens. It only lasts a few more seconds. They break apart slowly, but they don’t move away from one another. Michael smiles, all fond and in love. He slouches until he can tuck his head beneath Calum’s chin. He sighs contently, like there is nowhere else he’d rather be.

Ashton can’t help but to stare at them. They’re beautiful together, more beautiful than anyone else Ashton has ever known. His heart skips a beat in his chest at the sight. Calum presses his a kiss to the top of Michael’s head and stays there, breathing Michael in. Intimacy rolls off them in waves, engulfing Ashton all the way across the room. Calum meets Ashton’s eyes, and Ashton goes pathetically weak at the knees at the intensity behind Calum’s gaze. He is struck again with just how lucky he is that he gets to have Michael and Calum. His hand finds Luke’s again in the space between them.

It feels right, the four of them together in this moment, and Ashton never wants it to end.


	6. Chapter 6

Luke leaves in a whirl of kisses and pouts. It’s all a little bittersweet. Michael drapes himself over Luke like a second skin and peppers kisses all over every part of Luke that he can reach, as if he’s trying to make up for lost time already. Luke laughs, a paradox of delighted and sad at the same time. He wraps his arms around Michael and lets Michael do as he wants.

Ashton’s come to learn that’s the best way of dealing with Michael. It makes Michael ridiculously happy, letting him do what he wants, and a happy Michael is the best Michael.

“I’ll be back on Sunday, Mikey,” Luke murmurs, his lips brushing against Michael’s ear. It’s so intimate that Ashton, who is standing back from the pair with Calum, can feel the waves of their love crash over the entire room. “You’ll hardly notice that I’m gone.”

“Lies,” says Michael. “I already miss you.”

Luke chuckles. It comes out strained, like he’s half of a second away from saying _forget it_ and staying with them all weekend. He meets Ashton’s eyes over Michael’s shoulder, and Ashton can tell that Luke’s resolve is crumbling. He can’t blame Luke, really, for being so easy for Michael. Ashton himself is almost tempted to play right into Michael’s hand, to aid in Michael’s attempt to convince Luke to stay, but he can’t do that to Luke. He can’t double team on him. It’d be grossly unfair, and Ashton has never been a fan of playing dirty.

“C’mon, Mikey. You’ll still have Cal and me,” says Ashton, although he’d like nothing more than for them all to have Luke, too. “Aren’t we enough?”

Michael hums, nuzzling up into the underside of Luke’s chin. He closes his eyes as if he’s hoping to prolong the amount of time until Luke actually does have to leave. A moment or two passes before he finally responds to Ashton’s question.

“Of course, you are,” he says in a tone of voice that conveys just how stupid he thinks Ashton’s question actually is. “But Lukey never goes off by himself, and I worry.”

“I do, too—travel alone sometimes, that is,” says Luke.  

He’s lying. It’s obvious by the way he drops his gaze from Ashton and flicks his lip ring with his tongue. Usually, Ashton likes that he can tell whenever Luke is lying—except he doesn’t like the fact that he’s doing it right now. Ashton thinks about calling him on it, about asking for the truth that apparently he isn’t worthy of knowing, but he loses his chance.

“We still worry about you,” says Calum, taking the middle ground. He sounds fond. Ashton knows he is also tempted to beg Luke to stay, but Calum is stronger than Michael. Or, possibly, Calum, like Ashton, knows Luke isn’t stronger than both him and Michael.

Calum steps forward and tries to pry Michael off Luke, but Michael isn’t having it. Calum’s efforts backfire on him. Michael grabs him by the wrist, dragging him into the hug he’s already engulfed Luke in. Calum goes willingly, pliant as always under Michael’s direction. He lets Michael mold him around the other two.

Luke takes the opportunity to press a kiss to Calum’s cheek. They share an intimate grin about Michael’s clinginess. It’s a heartwarming sight to witness, Ashton thinks, and he smiles at the three of them entwined together.  

Michael opens his eyes, finally, and he meets those of Ashton. He frowns. He pushes away from Luke so that he can speak directly to Ashton. It jostles both Luke and Calum, but they settle back around him like an old, worn blanket. Comfortable and easy. Both under Michael’s spell.

“Why are you so far away?” demands Michael.

Ashton barks out a laugh. It’s stolen from his throat like Michael’s stolen his heart. He’s under Michael’s control as much as the other two are, and he’s just as shameless about it. That’s the thing about Michael. He walks into a room, and he steals everybody’s attention—but, no, maybe it’s not even that. Everyone _gives_ him their attention, because that’s the effect Michael has on people.  He draws them in, traps them, and doesn’t let them go.

“C’mere,” adds Michael, petulantly.

He grabs for Ashton like he had done for Calum, and Ashton goes just as easily. He falls into the others, right between Michael and Luke. He doesn’t initially know what to do with his hands. Michael lets go of his wrist, giving Ashton free reign of his limbs. For a moment, Ashton lets them hang awkwardly at his sides. Then he decides he’s being stupid. He’s _allowed_ to touch the other men, so he bites the bullet and wraps his arms around Luke’s and Michael’s backs. His fingers brush against Calum’s ribs.

There’s something perfect about the four of them together, and there’s something even better about touching the other three at the same time.

“’M going to be so late,” murmurs Luke. He doesn’t sound like he minds too much. Quite oppositely, he sounds rather reluctant to separate himself from the other three. “Mum’s going to kill me.”

“She loves us,” says Michael. “She’ll understand.”

Luke stays in their hold for a moment or two longer, but there is no use in putting off the inevitable. Slowly, he extracts himself from the other three. He kisses them one by one on the cheek, starting with Ashton and ending with Calum. When it’s Michael’s turn, Michael is greedy enough to turn his head so that their lips press together. Luke laughs but gives Michael what he wants.

“Don’t forget me while I’m gone,” says Luke. His lips are centimeters from Michael’s, and he’s staring down at Michael’s mouth like he really wants to kiss him again. “Take good care of Ash, okay?”

Ashton ducks his head, smiling. His chest feels warm and fuzzy. He likes how Luke cares about him, how Luke worries. Calum wraps his arm around Ashton and pulls Ashton to him. Ashton lays his head on Calum’s shoulder. He likes how protected Calum makes him feel, even through this one-armed hug. He understands why Michael is so fond of being attached to Calum.

“We won’t let him out of our sight all weekend,” promises Calum. He holds Ashton a little closer. He places a soft kiss into Ashton’s curls. His next words are nearly lost in Ashton’s hair. “He’ll probably be sick of us by the time you get back.”

“Impossible,” says Luke, and Ashton echoes him.

The truth is that Ashton could spend forever with Michael, Calum, and Luke and never, ever get tired of them. He’s kind of shooting for forever, actually, so the promise of spending an exuberant amount of time with Calum and Michael this weekend is enticing. It’s everything Ashton wants. Well, almost. He’s going to miss Luke.

“I really need to leave,” says Luke.

His phone rings in his pocket right then as if hurrying him out of the house. He doesn’t have a have a special tone set for anybody, but it’s probably a message from his mother asking how far down the road he is. He sighs, long and drawn out and saturated with reluctance. He takes a step back from Michael, but Michael follows him. Luke can’t help but to laugh. He ducks in for another kiss, Michael’s lips eager against his own.

“You’ve got to let me go, Mikey.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

Luke grimaces. It’s obvious that Michael is dancing dangerously close to convincing Luke to forego his trip back home. Luke knows, however, that his mother is looking forward to all of her sons being home for the weekend. He hates disappointing his mother, so he Calum a helpless look over Michael’s shoulder.

Calum takes pity on him, though his sluggish reaction time suggests he, too, wants to make this departure hard for Luke. He gently extracts himself from Ashton and steps away to curl around Michael, instead. He has to bodily separate Michael from Luke, but Michael still tries to resist him. Calum places a kiss to the base of Michael’s neck, soft and sweet like he always is with Michael.

“He’ll be a phone call away,” Calum murmurs.

“But I don’t like it when Lukey’s all alone.”

“He’s—he’s not going to be _alone_ ,” says Calum. His voice urgent, harsh against the bittersweet moment. He looks at Luke for support. “Tell him you won’t be alone.”

“Just until I get to my parents’ house, and then, I swear, I’ll be suffocated by people.”

Michael chews on his bottom lip unhappily. He’s not going to give up so easily. The fight is there in his eyes, in the way he struggles against Calum’s hold in an attempt to reattach himself to Luke. Calum is stronger than Michael, though. Or, perhaps, Michael’s automatic response to settle down in Calum’s arms is almost too ingrained to fight against.

“I can—I can go with you?”

Luke smiles sadly at him. He cups Michael’s cheek with his hand, ever so lovingly, and Michael leans into it. Luke places a kiss on Michael’s forehead, soft and saturated with love. When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. He stays there, centimeters from Michael like he can’t bear the thought of ever being farther away. The sight makes Ashton’s heart leap in his chest. Luke is so good with Michael. 

“You should stay here with Cal and Ash. I’ll be fine—I’ll miss you like crazy—but I’ll be all right.”

Michael sighs, the fight finally leaving him. His shoulders slouch in defeat. He stares at Luke, eyes big and glassy. His expression is tight in anguish across his face, and his lower lip trembles as he sucks in a breath.

“You’ll call, won’t you?”

“Yeah,” says Luke. Relief spreads across his face, replacing the anxiety that had settled over his cheeks. Sadness still lingers in his eyes. “Every hour, if you want.”

“I just don’t want you to feel like—like you’re—I mean, I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you, too,” says Luke.

He smiles, still a touch despondently, at Michael. Something unidentifiable appears in Luke’s expression, a twist of darkness that Ashton thinks he should place but can’t. It’s unsettling, yet almost as soon as it appears, it’s gone. Luke makes one more round of goodbye kisses. He lingers the longest on Michael, who is still held captive by Calum, before he finally manages to escape.

Ashton stares at the door long after Luke’s closed it. He and Michael and Calum remain frozen in place. It’s scary, this feeling of loss that’s tightening in knots in Ashton’s chest. It’s big. Luke has only left for the weekend, but Ashton already misses him a lot. 

“C’mon,” says Calum, the first one of them brave enough to move away from the entryway. Ashton’s overwhelmed with the sense that Calum is only being the strong one because Michael looks like he’s half of a second away from darting after Luke. “Let’s order a couple of pizzas and watch some movies—make this a typical Friday night.”

Calum’s proposal sounds promising. Ashton tells him as much, and between the two of them, they corral Michael to the couch. Michael doesn’t fight them. He’s compliant in the aftermath of his failed efforts to convince Luke to stay. He curls into Calum’s side when they’re both finally seated, and he presses himself as close to Calum as he can physically get.

Ashton orders the pizzas in the mean time, happy that he knows Michael and Calum well enough to not need to ask what they prefer. It’s the little, almost insignificant things like pizza toppings that Ashton is proud of knowing. There is an entire history of things the others know that Ashton doesn’t yet. He always feels like he has to play catch up, so it feels nice to know things without asking for once.

When he hangs up his phone, he tosses it onto the coffee table. He won’t need it. Everybody he could possibly want to talk to is right here with him—except Luke, of course, but Luke has already promised that he’d call Michael personally, so Ashton doesn’t expect that Luke will dial his phone. (Ashton tries to tell himself that he doesn’t have an ulterior motive for purposefully setting aside his phone: he’s almost overcome with the urge to call up Luke and beg him to return, because Michael misses him and so do Calum and Ashton. It’s almost awful how hung up on each other they all are—except that it’s the best thing in the entire world.)

Ashton sits down next to Michael on the couch. Calum has already chosen a movie, and the opening credits are playing on the television screen. Michael smiles softly at Ashton. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s tinged with sadness. Ashton can’t help himself. He leans over to press a kiss to Michael’s cheek, soft and loving like he knows Michael wants.

When he starts to pull away, Michael latches onto him. Ashton should have expected as much. He doesn’t complain, though. He falls into Michael’s chest like Michael wants, and Michael’s arms wrap around him, trapping him there. Michael sighs in contentment.

The pizza delivery guy arrives a little while later. Ashton extracts himself from Michael’s clingy hold to get the door. Michael resists, but the promise of food is more important than cuddles for the time being. Calum tells Ashton to get some money out of his wallet that’s laying on the coffee table, but Ashton ignores him. Calum always makes sure they’re well-fed. The least Ashton can do is pick up the bill for pizza this time.

On his way back to the couch, Ashton takes a detour through the kitchen to get drinks, paper plates, and napkins. It takes a careful balancing act to get everything safely to the living room, but he successfully lays it all out on the coffee table. He reclaims his seat next to Michael. After a brief period of frenzied movement as they all fill their plates with slices of pizza, they settle down to watch the rest of the movie.

It’s so painfully normal, even in the absence of Luke, that it’s comforting.

Michael sticks close to Calum, so close that it’s almost impossible for Calum to eat, but Calum doesn’t complain. He keeps one arm wrapped around Michael, his hand splayed across Michael’s belly, and eats the best he can. Michael is a clingy person by nature, Ashton’s come to find out, but he’s even worse in Luke’s absence. (Vaguely, Ashton wonders if Michael will ever get this sad about Ashton himself leaving—or if, possibly, he does already.)

Michael’s clinginess, though directed primarily at Calum, doesn’t stop there. Ashton leans forward to grab another slice of pizza. When he sits back down, there is a space of a few inches between Michael and him. Michael whines, dissatisfied. He grabs Ashton’s wrist with his greasy hand and tugs Ashton until there’s no space between them, until Ashton’s pressed almost as close to Michael as Calum is on his other side. Finally, Michael is content again.

Between the three of them, they demolish the pizza pretty quickly. One action movie turns into two and then three. It’s comfortable in all the ways Ashton feared it might not be in the absence of Luke. He doesn’t even know why he thought it might be any different than this. Luke loves Calum and Michael, and they love Luke. Of course, Ashton and Michael and Calum would be comfortable without Luke as a buffer. They have to be. This relationship can’t work if one of them is more important than the others. Ashton really, really wants it to work. He’s too far gone for all of them.

Luke calls about halfway through the second movie. He’s made it to his parents’ house. He calls Calum’s phone, but Calum hands it to Michael immediately. Michael grins a thousand watt smile. He leaps up from the couch, voluntarily extracting himself from Calum for the first time since Luke left, and answers the phone with an eager _Come back home_ that has Calum reaching after him. Michael dances out of Calum’s reach, a nefarious expression on his face as he listens to Luke’s response. Ashton doubts Luke will agree to turn around and drive back home right now, but whatever it is that Luke does say makes Michael laugh. Ashton supposes Michael is a little less torn up over Luke’s absence than he was earlier, and he’s glad for it.

Michael cleans off the coffee table as he talks to Luke. He has the phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, and his hands are full. Ashton offers to help him, but Michael waves him off. He chatters happily to Luke, making Luke detail every moment since Luke left, as he disappears into the kitchen.

Calum lets out a loud sigh when Michael’s gone, like he can’t resist taking advantage of the fact that he can breathe freely now that Michael is no longer pressing against his rib cage. He looks a little lost without Michael, though. Perhaps it’s because Michael has done nothing except cling to him for the past couple of hours.

Or, maybe, it’s just because there’s a noticeable empty space next to him. Ashton notices the space, too. It looks odd not being filled. He thinks about scooting over to cuddle with Calum until Michael gets back. He’s not so sure, though, that it’d be okay to invade Michael’s claimed spot.

“Don’t you want to talk to Luke, too?” he asks instead of moving.

“Nah, Mikey needs to. I’ll talk to him tonight before bed, probably—but if you want to now, Mikey won’t mind.”

The way Calum speaks, the careful tenor to his voice, makes Ashton pause. He thinks of how clingy Michael has been all evening and about how Michael had fought the hardest to convince Luke to stay. Through it all, Calum had been right there for Michael to turn to, for Michael to hold onto. Ashton’s always thought of Michael and Calum as _MichaelandCalum_ on some level, but this evening, it has been even harder to separate them than usual. Maybe it’s because Luke isn’t here to serve as a middleman.

“I’m in this for you and Michael, too, you know,” says Ashton.

He’s not sure he’s ever explicitly said as much. He didn’t actually think he needed to say it, because every time he says _I love you_ right before he leaves to go back to his lonely apartment every night, he says it to Luke _and_ to Michael and Calum. Maybe it’s not that obvious to the others that Ashton had meant his declaration for all of them. He did. _He does_. The thing is that it’s not an either-or situation. Ashton isn’t just falling in love with Luke—he’s falling for them all, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Calum’s eyes snap to his. Ashton is once again overwhelmed by the intensity of Calum’s gaze. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it. His heart skips a beat in his chest like it always does when Calum is looking at him with so much emotion that Ashton doesn’t really know what to do with himself. He wants to throw himself across the couch at Calum and kiss him like there is no tomorrow. He doesn’t, though, because this subject between them is too important to be put off any longer now that Ashton realizes his horrible oversight.

“Like, yeah, it started with Luke, but then I met you and Michael, and—I mean, how can you expect me to not fall in love with you two, too? You make Luke happy, and you make each other happy,” says Ashton. He sounds a little winded, and he trips over his own words, but he has to get Calum on the same page as him. He’s not even sure he’s making any sense. He keeps talking, though, because Calum is still staring at him like he’s the only thing in the entire world, and Ashton wants him to understand that it’s all of them or nothing at all for him. “It’s just… The three of you together, that’s what I want. I don’t want only Luke. You _all_ make me happy, too. Like, sometimes I wake up and expect this to all be a dream, you know? Because how the hell did I get so lucky?”

Calum blinks, the movement purposeful and slow like he’s trying to process Ashton’s spiel. Ashton knows he’s talked in a circle. His own thoughts are jumbled in his mind. He can’t make them all settle into place. His heart aches that Calum, and possibly even Michael, may think that Ashton is anything less than one hundred percent dedicated to _all_ of them.

“It was Mikey and me first,” says Calum softly. A faraway glint appears in his eyes like he’s taking a walk down memory lane. Ashton supposes he actually is. “We grew up together—been best friends since forever, it seems. I’ve been in love with him almost as long, probably. I was fifteen when he kissed me the first time, and he ran away, because he was afraid he’d fucked up, but Mikey—he can never fuck up as far as I’m concerned. I told him as much. I knew back then that he was _it_ for me.”

He stops to catch his breath, or maybe to edit his story. Ashton isn’t sure which, but he waits patiently for Calum to continue. There is more to this narrative. He’s eager for it like he is with all of the things he gets to learn about Calum, Michael, and Luke. It only takes Calum a few seconds to jump back into the story, but when he does, he drops Ashton’s gaze. He stares at his lap instead. His voice is rougher.

“Then we met Luke, and Michael was gone from the very beginning. I thought, ‘Well, this is it. Mikey’s going to leave me for Luke.’ But he didn’t. Mikey was… he was terrified. We were nineteen and living on our own for the first time, and he woke me up at three AM and told me everything. That he really liked Luke, but he loved me, and he was so scared that he was fucking everything up again. He thought it was Luke or me, and I wanted so bad to be selfish—to tell Michael that he shouldn’t lead Luke on—that Michael had to love _me and only me_. I was… I wasn’t very good to him. I wasn’t very good to Luke, either, but Luke was patient, and the moment he realized he was causing problems between me and Michael, he backed off. That should have been the end of it.”

Calum hesitates over his next words. Ashton knows he’s editing the story this time. He can tell by the tense set to Calum’s jaw. He thinks about prying, about asking for the full, unabridged version, but he doesn’t. Perhaps it’s nothing more than ugly fights between Luke and Calum that Calum would prefer didn’t color Ashton’s opinion of the both of them.

“It wasn’t—the end, that is. I realized that I was being stupid the entire time. That the only thing that mattered was that Michael was happy. I made him happy, yeah, but so did Luke, and just because he was falling for Luke didn’t mean he loved me any less. I couldn’t—I couldn’t _make_ Michael choose between me and Luke, so I learned to love Luke, too.”

Ashton can picture it, every word Calum says. Things don’t seem like they have changed over the years. Michael and Calum are still _MichaelandCalum_ , but they’ve got Luke—and Ashton—now. It doesn’t change who they are, not really. The thing about love is that it doesn’t have a quota. It’s always possible to love more.

“I do understand,” says Calum, finally looking back up to meet Ashton’s eyes, “that you’re not trying to steal Luke away from Michael and me.”

“I don’t want Luke if I can’t have you and Michael, too,” says Ashton, because he feels like it’s important to drive this point home. “You’re a packaged deal—that’s what Mikey said once, isn’t it?—and I wouldn’t want anything less than all of you.”

The space on the couch between them seems like it’s gotten bigger in the past few minutes, and Ashton can’t take it any longer. He doesn’t like how _alone_ Calum looks separated from him, so he finally gives into the urge to scoot across the cushions to Calum.

It’s so easy between them, but Ashton should not have expected it to be any different. He presses a soft, chaste kiss to the corner of Calum’s lips. He tucks himself under Calum’s arm, because he’d liked the feel of Calum’s hold earlier. Calum lets Ashton mold around him like he always lets Michael do. When Ashton is settled, Calum moves his hand to rest above Ashton’s heart.

They don’t say anything else, but Ashton doesn’t think they need to. He’s said his part, and Calum’s told his story. That’s enough for now. There’s no need to stain the perfection of this by pushing boundaries they don’t yet need to touch.

Michael returns to the living room a few minutes later. He is no longer on the phone with Luke, but he looks a thousand times happier than he has been all evening. He stops right in front of the couch, blocking Ashton and Calum’s view of the television, and grins down at them. Talking to Luke had definitely done him some good.

“Luke sends his love. Now, make room for me. You can’t leave me out of a cuddle.”

“We’d never leave you out,” says Calum automatically.

Ashton tries to sit up to allow Michael to reclaim his old spot. Calum’s hold on him is firm, however, and he can’t move. Michael doesn’t mind, though. He plops down in Calum’s lap, wedging himself next to Ashton. The positioning is horrible at first. Michael is hanging halfway off the couch, but Ashton wraps an arm around him and pulls him back from the edge.

The couch isn’t big enough for three grown men. Somehow, after Michael elbows both Ashton and Calum in the guts at least twice each, they make it work. Ashton draws in a deep breath and gets a mouthful of Michael’s hair for his trouble. It’s hard to breathe, stuck between Calum and Michael and the couch, but it’s worth it to say what he needs to say.  

“I love you, Mikey, and you, too, Cal.”

They’re going to be all right, the three of them. When Luke gets back, they’re all going to be even better.


	7. Chapter 7

Luke returns Sunday night, and he’s loaded with containers of leftover food that his mother insisted he bring back home. Michael is the first to hear the key turn in the lock. He’s snuggled between Ashton and Calum on the couch in their typical pile of limbs, and he hasn’t moved for the past hour, even going as far as to make Calum go into the kitchen to fix some more microwaveable popcorn after he’s eaten the last kernel of the first bag.

Michael perks up as he hears the click of the lock, and he leaps from the couch in one smooth movement. He launches himself on Luke the moment Luke close the door. Luke drops his bags in haste to catch Michael before he falls. It takes careful juggling, but Luke manages to keep enough of a hold on the containers of food to set them gently down on the arm of the chair next to him. Once freed, he wraps his arms around Michael and clings tightly.

“I missed you,” says Michael, loud, though muffled by the skin of Luke’s neck. He nuzzles against Luke, his head tucked beneath Luke’s chin. “Did you miss me?”

“Every single second I was gone until right now,” says Luke. He kisses the top of Michael’s head, getting a mouthful of Michael’s blond hair for his efforts. It seems to satisfy Michael, who sighs contently in his hold. Luke looks up at Calum and Ashton, who are still tangled with each other on the couch. “Is Mikey the only one who missed me?”

“Yep,” says Calum before Ashton can respond. It earns him a quick glare from Michael before Michael buries his face back into the crook of Luke’s neck. Calum grins, cheekily, and Ashton knows it’s all for show. “You steal the covers, and you leave the bathroom a sopping mess, and, I swear, you grow extra limbs whenever we’re all cuddling. It’s been a holiday without you, mate.”

Luke pouts, sticking out his bottom lip. Ashton thinks he should jump in now and cut Calum’s joke short—he’s pretty sure that is what Calum is banking on—but he’s distracted by the way Luke’s lip ring glistens in the light. He really wants to kiss Luke right now. Once that thought enters his mind, it’s hard to think about anything else.

“Calum’s being mean, Lukey,” says Michael after a beat of silence that Ashton doesn’t fill. “Don’t listen to him. We’ve all missed you a bunch, haven’t we, Ash?”

Ashton startles at the sound of his name. He still can’t look away from Luke’s lips. He heard what Michael said, of course, but he has to run through the words again in his mind before he can speak.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. We missed you loads.”

Calum snorts. “That’s reassuring.”

Luke, though, shoots Ashton a thousand-watt smile like he knows exactly what it is that’s gotten Ashton so flustered. Ashton blushes and forces himself to look away at Michael instead, who is still tucked underneath Luke’s chin. Michael looks like he belongs there, cuddled against Luke, and Ashton wonders if he will ever stop being amazed at how well these three people fit together already.

(He wonders if he, too, will ever fit as well.)

“Come here and kiss him already,” demands Michael, speaking straight to Ashton. He hasn’t even bothered to move away from Luke. In fact, he almost looks like he is trying to snuggle even closer.

Ashton doesn’t need to be told twice, especially by Michael. He has never been able to tell Michael no—he doesn’t know anybody who actually can tell him no—but he doesn’t even think about disobeying him. He wants to kiss Luke. He hasn’t been able to since Friday evening, and he’s missed it.

So he bridges the distance to Luke, pressing himself up against Michael’s back, and he kisses Luke over Michael’s shoulder. Michael hums contently between them. Luke kisses Ashton like he has missed Ashton just as much as Ashton has missed him. It’s nice to be wanted for once. Ashton isn’t quite used to the idea.

Michael wiggles out from between them, breaking the kiss. He pays them no mind as he wraps himself around Calum, and Calum brings Luke into a one-armed hug. Their kiss is less flourished than the one Luke had shared with Michael or Ashton, but Calum doesn’t ask for any more. Ashton thinks that, maybe, this is the way Calum and Luke work. That they’re chaste in an effort to balance out Michael’s larger-than-life, carefree love.

“We were just watching a movie,” says Calum. “It’s only about half over, but we could restart it? It shouldn’t go too late. You’ll certainly be in bed with enough time to rest before work. I know how cranky you can get when you don’t get enough sleep.”

“I don’t want to cause a fuss,” says Luke.

“It’s no trouble,” says Calum.

He starts walking back toward the couch, having to toddle a little bit to account for Michael stuck to him like a leach. Calum doesn’t complain. He settles down on the couch with Michael, and he grabs the remote to restart the movie. Michael drapes himself across Calum’s lap, his head on Calum’s shoulder.

Ashton glances at the clock on the wall behind Luke. It’s around the time that it usually is when he turns in for the night. He doesn’t like traveling the streets too late. His apartment is always so, so dark and empty when he returns to it every night after spending the entire evening here. He likes to have enough time to make his own place feel lived in or else he can’t sleep for how lifeless it is.

Last night and the night before, he’d indulged Michael’s request that he stay here a little later. He’d paid for it when he’d lied awake in his bed into the early hours of the morning, staring up at the ceiling and praying for sleep to overcome him. It didn’t. It’s hard to sleep in cold sheets, but it’s even harder to sleep in an empty bed when he knows that the others are all piled into one, safe and warm tangled together across the city.

He can’t afford such a luxury tonight, of staying beyond his self-imposed curfew. He, like Luke, needs his sleep before the horrid, awful Monday that is to come. If he leaves any later than now, he might not even fall asleep before he inevitably has to get up for work.  

“It’s about time I leave,” says Ashton to Luke, and he hates that he has to go, because Luke just got back. “I was trying to stay around long enough to see you.”

Luke’s smile fades. “But I’ve missed you loads.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” says Ashton, because it is true. He had enjoyed spending time with Michael and Calum, but he’d been acutely aware of Luke’s absence. They all had been. (Secretly, Ashton wonders if the other three notice when he’s not around, but he doubts they do. Or, at least, they probably don’t to the extent he, Calum, and Michael had missed Luke this weekend.) “But I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

“So do I,” says Luke, pouting again.

He knows how to play dirty when he needs to. Ashton thinks he must have learned it from Michael, who is the king of manipulating people into doing exactly what he wants. Ashton feels his resolve crumbling. It’s not fair, really. He doesn’t even _want_ to leave in the first place, but he has to.

“The last train leaves in, like, twenty minutes,” says Ashton. He has to look away from Luke as he speaks, or else he will fold before he even makes his case. He really, really doesn’t want to spend half of the night getting back to his place. “If I miss that one, I’ll have to take three buses just to get back to my apartment, and it’ll take at least an hour longer.”

“Then stay the night,” says Luke like it’s no big deal at all.

Ashton opens his mouth to argue, but Michael speaks up from the couch before Ashton gets a chance to decline the offer.

“We’ve been trying to get him to stay all weekend, but he said he wouldn’t, because it wasn’t fair to you.”

And it wasn’t. Because the three of them, it’s fine for them to be alone and domestic with one another. They’ve been in this relationship for a lot longer than Ashton has even known any of them. He has no right to demand that they dial back their intimacy when he isn’t around now that he is a part of the equation.

(Ashton has been doing really, really well to ignore the pool of jealousy he has no right to feel in the pit of his stomach at the idea of Luke, Calum, and Michael tangling together underneath the sheets, _thank you very much_.)

But what Michael doesn’t know—what neither Calum nor Luke know, either—is that, in the grander scheme of things, fairness was the farthest thing from Ashton’s mind whenever he’d turned down Michael’s persistent demands that he stay the night. The truth is—the horrible, awful, one hundred percent truth of Ashton’s pathetic life thus far that has been rumbling around in the back of his mind since the moment he fell in love with Luke _and_ Michael _and_ Calum—is that Ashton has never, ever been this lucky.

What is even more is that every other time in his entire life that he has ever gotten close to being this lucky, it has never lasted. Ever. He is terrified he will come crashing down from this high one day, too. All that will be left are the painful memories of how happy he’d been and the cold, hard truth that he’ll never be this lucky again.

So he has been reluctant to push too far into their lives, anxious that he’ll misstep, and he’ll be the odd man out, and the three of them will be happier without him. It sounds stupid to the rational part of Ashton’s mind, and maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. Because, well, they’ve been happy without him before.

He couldn’t, therefore, stay here without Luke for fear of making Luke think that Ashton cares for him less than he cares for Michael and Calum. He couldn’t hurt Luke’s feelings. He couldn’t risk being stupid enough to lose them all. (And, besides, it’s better that they believe this is the real reason behind his hesitancy. It’s safer.)

“Well,” says Luke, stepping closer to Ashton, crowding into his space. “If that’s how we’re playing it, it’s not fair that you have to leave, so you’re staying the night—you know, for the sake of fairness.”

The word _yes_ is on the tip of Ashton’s tongue. He wants so, so badly to say it—because he doesn’t want go back to an empty and cold bed where he will lay awake for hours thinking about the other three tangled together here without him—but he still hesitates. He can’t say yes. He can’t. Just because Luke is back doesn’t mean Ashton won’t fuck up. It doesn’t mean he won’t overstep his boundaries and push them all away. Like, he has to get up and piss at least twice every night. If he shares a bed with Luke, Michael, and Calum, he’ll constantly be waking them up. They’ll grow to resent him, he’s sure of it.

Oh, but, _god_ , what if they stuck him in the middle? Like, what if they already have a sleeping setup, and whoever sleeps on the outside prefers the outside? He’d have to crawl over them to get out of bed or risk pissing himself, and there is nothing less attractive than a grown-ass man wetting the bed. 

So Ashton can’t say yes. He can’t.

“Hey, hey. I can hear you over thinking,” says Luke, placing his hand on Ashton’s shoulder. He probably means it to be comforting.

Ashton jumps at the contact, his gaze darting to Luke’s. He’s sure he must look like a rabid animal—eyes wide, skin flushed, and trembling all over. _Fuck_. Just kill him now. He’s probably scaring Luke away. That’s a thing that could happen. It totally is. Because, surely, Ashton shouldn’t get so worked up over a request to spend the night with his boyfriends—a request that he wants to accept so desperately bad that he _has to say no_.

“If you want to go home, I’ll take you right now with the car, so you won’t even have to worry about the train,” says Luke, voice saturated with sincerity and guilt that has Ashton’s mind reeling. He glances over Ashton’s shoulder toward Calum and Michael briefly before he returns his gaze to Ashton. “You don’t have to stay here, if you really don’t want to. I don’t mean to push you into anything. _Damn_. I didn’t mean to move too fast.”

 _It’s not that_ , thinks Ashton, on the verge of sanity but not quite there. He can’t make his mouth form the words he needs in order to tell Luke that he’d very much like to stay but he’s the one who doesn’t want to move too fast. He needs to tell Luke that this isn’t fast at all. That it’s probably going to be Luke who is going to want him gone soon enough.

“Ash?” asks Luke, softly, when Ashton still proves to be silent and can do nothing except stare at Luke, wide-eyed and terrified, like a class-A, mindless idiot. “Ash, I’m—I’m sorry. I don’t know what I said, but I take it back. I swear.”

Still, Ashton says nothing. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, because he _does_. He wants to so much. He wants to tell Luke to stop worrying over messing up, that Luke didn’t do anything to fuck things up, that Ashton is doing it all himself. But it’s hard to speak when Ashton can barely breathe, and—oh, yeah. Here’s that anxiety attack that Ashton hasn’t had in _years_.

It’s like an out-of-body experience. Ashton sees everything that goes on around him. He hears it, too, but he doesn’t feel in control of himself. He can’t move his limbs to stop Luke from stepping away from him, heading toward the key rack where his shiny set of car keys are dangling from the third hook over. He can’t make his tongue form the words he needs to tell Luke the truth: that he really, really wants to stay here tonight. That he’d rather stay here than return to his empty apartment where he will drive himself near-insane in a cold bed staring up at the dark ceiling praying for sleep to overcome him.

He can’t do anything other than tremble, full-bodied. He must look pathetic, drawn in on himself, barely supporting his own weight, staring at Luke like he’s looking at a ghost. Ashton knows he _must_ look stupid to the others. He knows this, because he’s been told before, like that time by Patty Montgomery’s pig-nosed friend, who had laughed at him when he’d asked Patty ever-so-nicely _can I kiss you, please?_ and she’d just stared at him, neither agreeing or denying him, and he had been so mortified he couldn’t handle himself. He’d broken down right in front of her and her snotty best friend and half of his entire class.

So, it’s like he’s thirteen again and publically ridiculed by his classmates, and it gets even worse when Calum and Michael stand up from the couch, eyeing Ashton in concern. Because it’s one thing to break down in front of a hundred barely-teenagers whose names Ashton hardly knew back then and certainly doesn’t remember now, but it’s even worse to do this in front of _his boyfriends_ —in front of the people he wants so badly to fucking impress.

Ashton starts choking on air—or maybe his thoughts—or maybe his fear that they’re just going to kick him out right now and pretend like they never met him. That’s a thing. Certainly,  that is, because there is no way they’re going to want him after this. No way they’re going to think he’s even remotely worth dating after this. He can’t even fucking tell Luke that he wants to stay the night. Really, he couldn’t get any more pathetic.

A pair of warm, strong arms wrap around him from behind, and Ashton tenses at the contact. He still can’t breathe. His vision is swimming before him now—his glasses aren’t even helping to clear up his sight—and he really, really wants to just disappear right now. He wants to, maybe, stop existing altogether, because there is no coming back from this.

None.

“Breathe with me, Ash,” says a calm voice in his ear. It takes Ashton a moment to realize it’s Calum. He wonders how Calum made it from the couch to behind him without him even knowing it. “C’mon. In. Out. In. Out. Just like that. In. Out. In. Out.”

Ashton latches onto the sound of Calum’s voice, and he clings to it, trying to get a hold of the awful, horrible thoughts running through his mind. He can feel Calum’s chest against his own back. He can feel it expand as Calum inhales and contract as he exhales. Ashton tries to copy it. Tries to remember how to properly breathe. But it’s hard to do so with the anxiety continuing to tear him up inside.

“Just breathe,” says Calum in that same calm, soothing voice. His lips are pressed against Ashton’s right ear, and warm air puffs across Ashton’s jaw with every word Calum speaks. “In. Out. In. Out. C’mon. Breathe with me, Ash. In. Out.”

The world is crashing in on him, but Calum is a firm presence wrapped around him, forcing him to drawn air into his lungs and then to exhale in a pattern that should otherwise be thoughtless. Slowly, after an eternity of breathing in and out in synchronization with Calum, Ashton feels the clawing beast of anxiety begin to trickle out of him. Calum holds him strong, murmuring sweet, comforting nonsense into Ashton’s ear until it is all Ashton can think about. Until all of the demons are driven out of his stupid, overactive mind.

“You’re all right,” says Calum. Ashton thinks that, maybe, Calum is saying it as much to himself as he is to Ashton. “You’re all right.”

Ashton closes his eyes, slumping backward against Calum, who catches all of his weight without complaint. He feels drained—emotionally, mentally, and physically—like he always does in the aftermath of his attacks. Numbness starts to spread across his body, and it’s this confirms the words Calum is repeating over and over.

_He is all right—humiliated and horrified, yes, but all right._

When he opens his eyes again, Michael and Luke are right there before him, watching him carefully. Ashton feels his entire body flush in embarrassment. He should probably step away from Calum now and try to regain some dignity. He doesn’t. For one, he isn’t sure his knees can support his own weight. Mainly, though, Calum hasn’t let go of him—he may even be clinging tighter to Ashton now—and it makes Ashton feel safe in all the ways he never does after his attacks.

“I’m sorry, Ash,” says Luke, truly remorseful. He looks like he wants to say more but isn’t sure how to proceed.

“It’s—it’s not your fault,” says Ashton after a false start. He has to clear his throat again. His mouth is unbelievably dry. But, amazingly, the other three aren’t running the other way or even kicking Ashton to the curb. “I should probably be the one to apologize.”

“What? Why?” demands Michael. His voice is shrill, probably from fright. Ashton flushes in humiliation again that his little episode scared Michael. He doesn’t like scaring Michael. “You have no reason to apologize. It was a panic attack, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. These things happen. I mean—does that happen to you often?”

Ashton shakes his head. He doesn’t believe Michael that he shouldn’t have to apologize, though. It feels like he should. He scared Michael, for one, and the other two don’t seem any better off, and it was stupid anyway. Luke had just asked him to stay the night, a question that was perfectly acceptable given their relationship. He wasn’t even looking for sex, probably, only innocent sleeping and more than likely some clothed cuddling. Ashton just freaked out over nothing.

(Maybe this is why Ashton has never been this lucky before. Maybe this is why things always blow up in his face.)

“You’d tell us if it did, wouldn’t you?” asks Michael after a beat.

“Of course,” answers Ashton, mostly because he doesn’t like the glint of uncertainty in Michael’s eyes. He tries for a smile, too, to further soothe Michael’s nerves, but it feels weak on his lips. He tries not to think about how he’s probably lying and how he thinks that Michael probably knows he is, also.

“I’m still sorry,” says Luke, caught up in his guilt. “I shouldn’t have pushed you when you said you didn’t want to stay the night. It’s just—I really wanted you to stay, because it’s lonely at night when you’re gone. I didn’t mean to—”

Luke looks so lost and so remorseful that the words fall from Ashton’s lips, unhindered and easy, before he can really think them through. Before he can freak out about them again.

“I want to stay.”

It’s a whole lot easier to admit his innermost desire now that he is drained from his earlier attack. Now that he is safe in Calum’s arms. Invincible. He feels like he could take on the world with these three people—with his _boyfriends_ —and, in hindsight, maybe that’s the voice in the back of his head he should have been listening to instead of all of his doubts and fears.

Ashton has never been this lucky, but he’s never been this happy, either. Yeah, this could all go down in flames—it probably will, given that this is Ashton and all—but for now, Luke and Michael are looking at him like he has just given them the legendary cup of life in four simple words, and Calum’s body is pressed flush against his, and Ashton feels like, maybe, this is a mountaintop he’ll never, ever fall down from.


	8. Chapter 8

Michael lends Ashton a t-shirt to sleep in. He offers him a pair of bottoms, too, but, after Ashton watches Calum strip down to nearly nothing, he tells Michael he’s fine with just his boxers. Michael’s t-shirt is a little big on him, stretched out from years of use. Ashton likes the way it looks on him. He likes the way Michael’s eyes roam hungrily over his body even better.

Luke shows Ashton to the guest bathroom, because Calum and Michael are fighting over the one connected to the master bedroom. There is a spare toothbrush in the top drawer, and Ashton uses it with the toothpaste that’s in the medicine cabinet. It is cinnamon compared to his favored mint-flavored one, but he doesn’t complain.

(He can’t stop thinking about the fact that this toothbrush is the first thing that he can call his here. It makes him feel warm and fuzzy and so, so loved—which is a little stupid, really, because it’s such an insignificant thing that Ashton is a total geek for getting so emotional over.)

When he finishes cleaning his teeth, he leaves his toothbrush in the holder next to the sink, and he takes a moment to himself to admire the way it looks. The way that he seems to be fitting oh so well into this home as if it’s as much his as it is Calum’s and Luke’s and Michael’s. It is a little bit of a premature assessment, probably, because this is the first time he has stayed here overnight, and it’s only been a couple of hours. It feels nice, all the same, that things are going so good thus far.

The master bedroom is two doors down from the bathroom. It’s the only other door that is open. As Ashton makes his way there, he thinks about all of the hidden secrets of this place that he doesn’t know about but one day—probably _very soon_ —will, and the thought alone brings a wide smile to his face.

He is so, so gone for these people, and he never wants to let them go.

The smile hasn’t left his face by the time he enters the master bedroom. His first thought is that the bed is huge. It isn’t that surprising, of course, because it has to be big enough for Luke, Michael, and Calum, but it’s nice that there looks like there might be just enough room for Ashton, too—that it looks like there has always been an Ashton-sized hole in their lives that Ashton is finally getting to fill.

“Dibs on middle,” announces Michael, appearing in the doorway leading to the ensuite bath. He’s dressed in a black band t-shirt and a pair of black bottoms that have a hole in the thigh of the left leg.

“Like you were going to sleep anywhere else,” says Calum, sauntering around him toward the made-bed. He gives Michael a quick peck on the cheek on his way by. Michael tries to be greedy and pull him back in for a proper kiss, but Calum dances out of his reach, grinning cheekily over his shoulder at Michael.

Ashton has the fleeting thought that it’s nice the three of them care enough to make up the bed every morning. He, himself, couldn’t be bothered with all of the effort it takes to make a slept-in bed look decent when he knows he’s just going to mess it right back up come that night. It’s part laziness, truthfully, but it’s also because nobody ever sees Ashton’s bed, so there’s no reason for him to care—or there wasn’t, but now there might be, and maybe he should start making his bed every morning.

But no, that’s stupid, because it’s so much smarter to spend time here where there is enough room for everybody and where there isn’t a constant draft across the living room that makes a pile of blankets necessary no matter where in the living room someone sits.

Calum flops down onto the bed, limbs sprawled out, and he lets out a long moan low in his throat. “Fuck. It’s been a while.”

“Cal,” says Michael, but he doesn’t say anything else.  

Calum winces. He glances briefly at Ashton then rests his attention on Michael. “Where’s, uh, Luke?”

“Right here,” answers Luke himself. He wraps his arms around Ashton from behind and rests his chin on Ashton’s shoulder. Ashton leans back into him, safe and comforted and loved. “I couldn’t find a clean shirt in my room, so I had to get one from the dryer.”

“Could’ve borrowed one of mine,” says Michael, easy as always, smiling over at Luke. “They’re in the drawer, neat and folded like they always are.”

“Only because Calum does your laundry for you,” says Luke. His breath is warm against the skin of Ashton’s neck, and his voice is stained with adoration.

“Let’s get to bed, yeah?” suggests Calum before Michael can retort. He rolls over so that he can pull the covers down the bed. “C’mon. I know how crabby the two of you are in the mornings.”

Luke chuckles, his body shaking against Ashton’s. Neither Luke nor Michael make any attempt to argue with Calum. Michael crawls into bed next to Calum, and he molds his body against Calum’s as natural as breathing. Ashton supposes it probably is, given the years they’ve been together, first as friends then as more.

Luke guides Ashton over to the bed and ushers him onto it first. Ashton has the fleeting thought that he’s never, ever shared a bed with somebody else before, and he’s not sure what he’s going to do for the next eight or so hours. He isn’t sure what to do with his arms or which way he should sleep or if he’s allowed to curl up like he does when he sleeps all alone in his cold, empty bed back home.

_And, oh god, what if he’s the worst bed partner in the history of bed partners?!_

But Luke’s hand is a steady anchoring point in the small of his back, and Ashton swallows back his insecurities. He throws caution to the wind—thinks _fuck it_ —and crawls into bed next to Michael. He can do this. He can totally do this.

The sheets smell like detergent. He’s disappointed that they don’t smell like the other three already, but he likes that they wash their bedding on a regular basis. It’s definitely not a thing he is adult enough to do himself.

He’s a little tense, initially, and still swallowed up by his insecurities. Luke flips off the light before climbing into bed next to him. The bed is huge, yes, but it’s still barely big enough for four grown men. They all have to squash together. Luke nudges Ashton over until he’s got enough room on the bed so that he won’t fall off. He wraps one arm around Ashton, curling the other underneath his pillow.

Ashton leans back in Luke’s hold, his back to Luke’s front, and he thinks that his earlier insecurities were all for naught. This is the most natural thing in the entire world—except that it feels like there is an entire universe in the space between him and Michael. It’s strange, because the bed is barely large enough for all of them to fit into, so they should be utilizing as much of the space as possible. They’re not.

At least they’re not until Ashton scoots across the no-man’s land to snuggle up against Michael’s back. Michael sighs contently, happy between Ashton and Calum, and he tangles his legs with Ashton’s underneath the covers. Ashton presses a kiss to the back of Michael’s neck, unable to reach any other part of him.

There is a draft of cool air blowing down into the covers. Ashton shivers against it. Luke hadn’t followed him when he’d moved to curl up around Michael, and Ashton misses Luke’s hold. He’d felt safe and protected and loved, Luke’s arm strong around him. Now, though, he feels as a little lost.

So he reaches back for Luke’s hand. He finds it after slapping around for a few seconds, and he threads their fingers together. Luke tightens his grip on Ashton’s hand immediately. Ashton takes that as permission to tug Luke toward him. Luke goes, pliant. He wraps his arm around Ashton once more without letting go of Ashton’s hand. He buries his face into Ashton’s hair, and he seems content to never, ever move. Ashton counts it as a win. He drifts off to sleep, lulled by the steady puffs of air tickling through his curls. He’s never slept so well in his entire life.

Luke sleeps like the dead. Ashton only knows because he has to get up twice to go to the toilet, and he crawls over Luke both times. In the first instance, he is terrified that he’ll wake Luke up. he tries so, so hard to maneuver himself out of Luke’s hold then completely out of the bed without jostling too much. But that all goes to hell whenever he forgets his legs are still tangled with Michael’s and he falls face-first into Luke’s stomach. Ashton freezes.

Luke grunts, sleepily pats Ashton’s head in a silent and unprovoked _it’s okay_ , and then promptly goes back to softly snoring.

After that, Ashton figures out he doesn’t have to be so gentle. He goes to the toilet in the ensuite and does his business by the faint moonlight streaming in through the high window. Washing up was a little trickier, as he can’t find any soap setting on the sink. There isn’t any in the partially empty medicine cabinet, either. He feels a little guilty rifling through the vanity where the others keep their personal grooming products, but he doesn’t think they’d actually mind, especially since he is wearing Michael’s t-shirt now and sharing a bed with them all.

The soap ends up being in the bottom drawer that is otherwise empty, save a box of unopened condoms. Ashton blushes right to his ears at the discovery then promptly feels like a naïve thirteen-year-old again getting the sex talk from his mother. He is an adult, dammit. Condoms are a necessary part of life, and there is an obvious need for them here. Ashton suspects they’ve got boxes of condoms stowed away in nooks and crannies all over the house.

(He tries not to feel jealous that the others are sexually intimate together without him and reminds himself that he’s a newcomer to this relationship. He can’t expect them to put their individual relationships on hold just because he isn’t comfortable enough to have sex yet. It’s nothing on their part, and one day he won’t even have to feel jealous.)

He returns to the bedroom and crawls back into bed, reclaiming his spot between Michael and Luke. He falls back asleep within minutes but wakes up again around an hour or so later to repeat the process. He should monitor his evening liquid intake better or something, because this isn’t going to be a one-off thing—him sleeping in this bed with the other three—and they’re bound to get tired of him getting up and down several times throughout the night.

When he wakes up the third time, he almost groans. He never gets up this often to go piss. His sleep ridden mind reasons it’s probably just his nerves until he realizes that he doesn’t actually have a need to go to the toilet. He’d been awoken by different means. 

“’S alright, Mikey,” whispers Calum.

Ashton can feel the bed shift as Calum maneuvers Michael into a sitting position. It’s so dark in the room that Ashton has to squint his eyes to see the outline of Michael curled into Calum’s side on the edge of the bed. His mind is still riddled with sleep. He thinks that, maybe, he should ask why they’re even awake before dawn, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He’s too tired to make an effort to speak.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if he’d wanted to go through the effort to talk, he doesn’t get the chance. Calum gets up from the bed, and he tugs Michael with him, and the two of them disappear out of the room. Ashton thinks about calling after them—about asking if there’s anything he could do or maybe asking exactly _why_ Calum feels the needs to assure Michael it is all right, whatever _it_ is—but sleep still has a hold on his brain. In the end, he’s powerless against the draw of it.

He falls asleep listening to the soft pad of footsteps disappear down the stairs.

When he wakes up again, a long while later, he’s alone in the bed. It’s disorienting at first. He doesn’t typically wake up somewhere that isn’t his own room, and on the odd occasion that it is somewhere else, he’s usually face down on his couch with an empty bottle of Jack clutched to his chest—though he prefers to pretend that those occasions are few and far in between. When his cognitive functions start kicking in for the day, he thinks it’s a pleasant change of circumstances. He could get used to waking up here for the rest of his life.

What isn’t pleasant is the fact that he is alone and the sheets feel cold when he stretches out his limbs. Nobody has been in bed for a while. It is barely past dawn, the weak sunlight streaming in through the window. It’s puzzling. He still has a good hour and a half before he has to be at the office. Luke, naturally, has the same amount of time, so Ashton doesn’t really understand why Luke, at the very least, isn’t curled up next to him.

It’s this confusion that propels him from the bed. He walks barefoot across the room to the door. When he arrives in the hallway, it takes him a couple of seconds to get his bearings. He has actually never been upstairs until last night, despite how much time he’s spent here since he started dating the other three. He glances to his left and sees a variety of doors. The one at the end is the only one propped open. He spots the outline of a bed. It must be the guest room.

The stairs are to his right. He takes them two at a time, eager to see where everybody else is at this time of a morning. The strong aroma of coffee drifts to him, answering his question. He follows it to the kitchen, but he stops dead in his tracks before he ever crosses the threshold into the room.

“You should have woken me up,” says Luke. He sounds frustrated, like he is poking at the embers of a fire that should have died long ago. “Dammit, Cal.”

Luke slams his coffee cup against the table, or so Ashton assumes he does, because it’s the only thing he can imagine that would account for the harsh clanking sound of porcelain against wood that echoes out into the small hallway. Ashton’s heart leaps to his throat. He stands stock still just out of sight. He thinks that, maybe, he should just walk in right now and announce his presence instead of standing outside of the room like a nosy busybody.

He doesn’t move.

“I had it all under control,” says Calum. He’s quieter than Luke but no less irritated. Ashton almost has to strain to hear him speak.

“That’s not the point. It’s not just your responsibility.”

“Yeah, well, it has been for me for a whole lot longer than it has been for you.”

The resulting silence is palpable. Luke draws in a sharp breath. Ashton feels a little lightheaded, like it was he, and not Luke, who took such a devastating blow from Calum. He staggers backward a step or two, feeling infinitely guilty all of a sudden for eavesdropping in the first place. He’s an awful human being. An awful boyfriend. He shouldn’t be listening to this. It’s obviously meant to be private. He should have strolled right in without stopping a few minutes ago instead of lurking in the darkness like a crooked spy.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Ashton jumps, startled, and spins on his heel to face a grinning Michael, who is fresh from the shower with tiny water droplets dripping from the tips of his hair. It’s a wonder Ashton hadn’t also yelped in a totally unattractive fashion, too. He feels his face heat up with a blush, and he feels ten times worse than he did. He has been caught. He hadn’t meant to listen in on Luke and Calum’s conversation, but he had, and now Michael knows, and pretty soon they’re all going to know what a horrible person he is.

The smile fades from Michael’s face. His eyes dart over Ashton’s shoulder toward the opened kitchen door for the brief flash of a second. When he meets Ashton’s eyes gaze again, he tries to reclaim his smile. It falls a little flat on his lips like none ever have before.

“They at it again?” he asks, going for a light-hearted tone, but it ends up matching the awful smile on his face.

Ashton’s stomach flops and not in a good way. He wants to ask Michael what he means—wants to ask Michael why he and Calum got up last night and never came back to bed—but he isn’t sure he wants to know the answer to any of his questions. Not if the truth can bring such an ugly expression to Michael’s handsome face.

“Calum is always grumpy in the morning,” says Michael, shooting for a teasing tone but missing it by twenty-thousand leagues, “and Luke is incapable of functioning as a decent human being until, like, two cups of coffee.”

Michael tries so hard to keep the smile on his face, but Ashton sees right through it. He sees the tightness of Michael’s jaw and the way Michael clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides. The air is thick around them. Uncomfortable. Ashton finds it hard to breathe. He finds it hard to look at Michael, too.

Michael can’t look at him, either, but he’s nice about it, dropping his head to hide the sham of a smile twisting on his lips. When he goes to step around Ashton so that he can enter the kitchen and put some distance between him and this moment, Ashton moves with him on instinct. Michael halts, startled enough glance back up at Ashton. They’re chest-to-chest now. Ashton feels like he’s standing on the edge of a bottomless pit and the only thing keeping him from toppling into it is the glint of wild desperation shining in Michael’s eyes.

If Ashton were a different type of person—if he were someone who wasn’t absolutely, _completely_ , one hundred percent terrified of the truth hidden in the fissures of Michael’s faux cheerful demeanor—he might call Michael’s bluff.

But he doesn’t.

He takes the coward’s way out, placing a quick good morning kiss on Michael’s lips instead like that was his plan all along. He pretends like he doesn’t see relief spread instantly though Michael’s body and that he doesn’t share that relief.

Some secrets, he thinks, are better left alone.


	9. Chapter 9

Ashton starts staying overnight at Luke, Calum, and Michael’s place almost every night. It is nice. He hardly remembers what it is like to be suffocated by the emptiness of his own apartment, though he still pays a rent check at the first of every month, and, every time, he is slapped in the face with the fact that he is paying for something he isn’t even using. He has done such a good job at _adulting_ lately that it makes him sick to know that he is throwing hundreds of dollars down the drain.

But he doesn’t say a word to the others. He spends as much time with them as he can and keeps his own personal financial situation out of their way. It is nothing to them anyway what he spends his money on.

Until it becomes their business.

All of the bad things come to a head on a rainy Tuesday. Ashton is running late for work, because he has gotten so used to being woken up by another person over the past few months that he forgets to set his alarm the night before when he had fallen asleep in his own bed at his own apartment for the first time in at least two weeks. Monday night had been a good time to return home—or, rather, to the apartment that he pays rent on. He isn’t quite if he still thinks of the empty walls of the apartment as home. It is so much easier to let the question of, _“Is Cal going to have dinner ready for us when we get home, or are we going to stop somewhere and get something on the way in?”_ fall from his tongue on a daily basis than to tell Luke, _“I think I’m going to return home tonight,”_ and mean the apartment.

Regardless, Ashton spends Monday night at home. Michael is away at an overnight conference, something that is supposed to help to garner more business for the store, and Calum, according to Luke, always trains late into the nights at the practice field whenever Michael is gone, too unsettled to wait at home for somebody who isn’t coming back.

Ashton offers to spend the evening with Luke, but a last-minute emergency has their boss, Jimmy, picking a handful of employees to work overtime to fix the problem. Luke, naturally, is at the top of Jimmy’s biased list. Luke doesn’t complain, except to lament that he won’t get to spend some one-on-one time with Ashton outside of work. He won’t let Ashton volunteer to stay late.

So Ashton is left to his own devices. He goes home. To his own apartment. (When he is on the bus on his way there, he smiles to himself about the fact that he has to clarify what this version of _home_ in particular means now.)

He does fine on his own. Of course, he does. He is a proper adult who has lived by himself for a while. He does up all of the laundry he has neglected to do, which consists of the sheets he has scarcely slept in and the few articles of clothes that haven’t fallen into the pile of laundry that Luke has thrown into the wash with his own. He cleans the toilet, though it doesn’t need it, and he cleans his tub, too, so he can take a bath. Typically, he isn’t a man who enjoys soaking in his own filth, but he has always had a soft spot for bubbles.

When he is done, he showers until he actually feels clean. He pulls on a pair of stripped boxers and an old, holey band t-shirt for his pajamas then goes about remaking his bed. He does his nightly routine, brushes his teeth like a decent human being and rubs some acne ointment on the errant pimple threatening to consume his chin, and then calls it a night.

It is a little earlier than he usually goes to bed. Luke and Michael in particular have a liking for staying up watching old movies or playing video games, and Ashton can’t bring himself to depart from their company to turn in early. Usually, he ends up curled up on the couch with his head on Calum’s shoulder, drifting off to sleep to the familiar, soothing banter that Luke and Michael exchange.

Tonight, that isn’t the case. Perhaps that is why he lies awake for a long time after he turns off all of the lights. Or perhaps it is because he has grown too used to the tight press of bodies on either side of him. They all sleep in the big bed back at the house, tangled together. Maybe it has ruined Ashton. Maybe sleep will forever evade him unless he is tucked away safely between Luke and Michael with Calum snoring on the other side of the bed.

Ashton tosses and turns for hours. This bed is entirely too empty. The apartment is too quiet, and when he gets up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, he crawls over somebody who isn’t there out of habit, and it just makes him feel even more lonely. When he finally falls asleep, in the wee hours of the morning, he sleeps fitfully. That is probably his first clue that the next day isn’t going to be good at all.

He wakes up five minutes before he needs to be on the _bus_ , and that just figures. Really, it does, because apparently Ashton is totally failing at this whole _adulting_ business that he prides himself on having mastered. There is no use in hurrying to try to make the bus, because he can’t even make the walk down to the stop in five minutes. He goes about his morning routine, showering as quickly as humanely possible—so quick that he nearly forgets to rinse all of the soap off his body and has to turn the water back on just to finish up—then tripping into his clothes.

He doesn’t have time for breakfast, which isn’t unusual, but he doesn’t have time for coffee, and he doesn’t even have any coffee made anyway. This morning is all sorts of bad. He hasn’t even stepped outside of his apartment yet. It only gets worse when he does. By this point, really, he wants to just go curl up in bed and maybe see if tomorrow will be any better.

But he takes heed of the yellow slip of paper tacked on his door nonetheless. He doesn’t even have to read it to know what it is: an eviction notice. He is fucked. He is so, so fucked. It had been a headache and a half even securing this apartment in the beginning. Having mediocre credit and no one willing to cosign made his apartment hunting a nightmare. Getting another place now, after breaking this leasing contract, might be impossible, especially in the during the short period of eviction.

Anxiety churns in his stomach. He feels like he might vomit, even though he hasn’t eaten anything since a microwaveable burrito last night around seven. He has to sit down or else he is going to fall, so he stumbles back into his apartment, work be damned. He barely closes the door before he sinks to the floor, his elbows on his knees and the yellow slip of paper shining menacingly bright in the dim light, like the clouds in the sky just before a tornado rips through the air.

This can’t be happening to him. It just can’t be. He has worked too damn hard at _making_ it for it to all go to hell in the print on a scrap of paper. He kind of feels like he is in a dream. In a nightmare. Like this is something that is happening but not to him, or at least, not in reality.

He doesn’t understand how this came to be. That is the startling thing. He has made damn sure to pay every single bill as soon as he has received it ever since he had signed his name to the lease. It was his one shot at getting on his feet, at finally maybe not fucking up his life and maybe being able to properly _adult_ for the first time.

He is especially careful to make sure he pays rent when it is due and not a day too late. It is not like he has that many bills, anyway. Rent and water and sewage and electricity and internet. That was it. Four necessities and one splurge so that he didn’t go stir crazy in his empty apartment. He doesn’t even bother with cable television, because he knows at the end of the month that his wallet just can’t provide for it. He is fine with that. He is, because he is an adult, and he is finally giving it a proper go, but he is not fine with all of his hard work going up in flames. Again.

He lets himself wallow in his problems for a few minutes longer before pushing everything aside. This isn’t something that will magically go away the longer he sits on the floor on his apartment on the verge of a panic attack. If there is one thing he has learned over the years of never getting what he has wanted, it is that he has to fight for what he does have.

It is possible there has been some mistake, that the landlord has issued the eviction notice to some other apartment and it got tacked to his door by accident. Surely, there is some sort of logical explanation that would explain why Ashton has an eviction notice for not paying rent when he did in fact hand deliver the check to the main office himself the first day of the month. There has to be. Ashton can’t lose this apartment.

When he finally pulls himself together and makes it to the front office to speak with the lady sitting at the desk, the world crumbles a little more around him. The lady hands him a photocopied piece of paper. The truth is there in smudged black and white: his check bounced.

He thinks he might cry.

The lady at the desk informs him that he will be charged thirty-five dollars for every day he is late until the eleventh of the month—which is Tuesday—and then, if he hasn’t paid, he has three days to move out or they will bring legal action. The bottom drops out of Ashton’s stomach. He really does feel like vomiting this time. He smiles nonetheless and thanks her for her time before he leaves, because she is at least gentle, bordering on apologetic, as she recites the standard policy.

He goes back to his apartment, numb, and runs through a list of what he needs to do. He needs to call the bank about the check. He needs to call work to take the day off, because apparently he is not going to make it in today. The idea of sitting behind a desk for a continual eight hours while his life is falling apart is horrendously unappealing.

He makes the phone calls in a quick succession, first to Jimmy then the bank. Jimmy is surprisingly sympathetic to Ashton’s pity story. He gives Ashton the day off and tells to stop by his office first thing the next morning. Ashton agrees, caring little to question his boss’s kindness when the absurdity of it is so overshadowed by all of the bad things going on right now.

After he hangs up with his boss, he calls the bank. Things go from bad to worse. He really doesn’t have the funds in his bank account to cover the overdue rent, let alone the additional late fees he is currently incurring. Something has to be wrong. He politely tells the banker on the other side of the line.

“There looks to be a transaction from your account on the thirtieth,” says the man.

His voice is kind as he rattles off a staggering number that makes Ashton’s toes curl. Ashton feels numb all over. That is such an impossible figure that he doesn’t even know how to explain to the banker that he would never, ever in a million years withdraw everything except four measly dollars from his account. Not at once. Not even over the course of twenty transactions. He is so careful with his money—so careful to make sure that he has enough to cover his rent and his bills and his groceries—that he is well-practiced in the art of keeping track of where every single cent goes.

He essentially tells the banker as much and adds, in a dull voice, “There has to be some mistake.”

“There is a copy of the check on file, Mr. Irwin,” says the banker. “There should be a copy attached to your monthly statement, too.”

Ashton glances at the pile of mail haphazardly stacked on the end of the kitchen counter. He tucks the phone in between his ear and his shoulder but asks the banker to hold. The banker is polite, and Ashton digs through two weeks’ worth of mail to find the particular envelope stamped with the bank’s address in the upper left hand corner. Ashton tears it open, making a jagged mess out of the envelop.

There it is on the third page in a black and white photocopy between the check Ashton had written for his water bill and the one he had made out for his renter’s insurance. It is the end of Ashton’s world. The banker is right. The check is real. Ashton’s account has been drained. But the handwriting isn’t his.

“If you don’t have your monthly statement, you are welcomed to come to the branch nearest to you and we can look it up for you,” says the banker after a few moments of silence in which Ashton can do nothing except for stare at the wobbly excuse of his signature on the bottom of the photocopied check. The banker mistakes this quietness for Ashton’s inability to locate the proper documentation. “If you believe there is an error with this particular check or that somebody has fraudulently accessed your account, we have procedures—”

“I’d rather not jump ahead just yet,” says Ashton. He tries to be polite, though he knows its rude to have interrupted the banker. The urge to vomit is back tenfold now, not that it ever left, and he would rather be off the phone when it inevitably happens. “I seemed to have misplaced my bank statement, so I will see if I can find it. If not, I will drop by the bank. Thank you for your time.”

He hangs up before the banker has a chance to respond, and he presses a few buttons on his phone to open a new message. He types out a series of numbers he wishes he had never learned then proceeds on to laboriously type out a hasty message. His hands tremble so badly he has to hit backspace twice as much as he hits any other key put together. It takes him five minutes to write _put the money back_ and when he finally presses send, he dashes toward the sink and vomits.

Luckily, because he has scarcely been at the apartment over the past few months, there isn’t anything in his kitchen sink except for the empty glass he had drank out of last night. The whole vomiting process isn’t as disgusting as he knows it could have been, but the idea of it all makes him gag.

He is such a failure of an adult.

His knees give out from underneath him. He turns around, catching himself on the counter and slides down to the floor. He doesn’t get up. He doesn’t move. He brings his knees up to his chest and hugs them tightly, feeling like the world is crashing in around him. He wishes he could say it was a new phenomena. It isn’t. It is practically the story of his life.

On the counter, his cell phone beeps with a message. He doesn’t get up to answer it. He doesn’t think he would be able to stand if he even tried. So he ignores it. He ignores the next one, too, and the one after that. Eventually, the messages stop.

Hours later, and Ashton isn’t sure how long it is precisely, there is a knock at the door. Ashton hasn’t moved from the kitchen floor. He hasn’t moved at all, actually. He still has his knees drawn up to his chest, his head resting in his hands. He feels numb. Irrelevant. Defeated.

He doesn’t get up to answer the door, so, after a couple of minutes, there is another series of knocks. Still, Ashton doesn’t move. He can’t. It doesn’t matter who is at the door. He is in no condition for human interaction.

When the third knock doesn’t occur, Ashton thinks the person on the other side of the door has given up. That isn’t the case. Through the quietness of the house, Ashton hears the doorknob rattle. The hinges squeak. Ashton thinks he should probably be worried. That maybe he should reach for the a knife in the drawer next to his head in case the intruder is particularly violent. But then reconsiders it almost immediately. Burglars don’t typically knock first.

“Ashton?” calls Calum.

Ashton’s heart skips an entire beat in his chest. His head snaps up at the sound of Calum’s voice. He hears footsteps wander farther into the house. The hinges squeak once more as Calum, presumably, shuts the door behind him.

“Are you here? Because your door was unlocked, and Luke said you weren’t at work.”

Ashton’s voice is caught in his throat, so he doesn’t answer. He waits as Calum walks farther into the apartment, his footsteps becoming gradually louder as he nears the kitchen. When Calum finally emerges from behind the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room, he stops, his eyes locked with Ashton. A terribly worried frown appears on his face.

“What are you doing on the floor?”

Ashton blinks at him, still unable to find his voice. Calum looks sweaty, nearly out of breath, like he came straight here from the practice field. His attire certainly seems to attest to that, dressed as he is in a pair of green athletic shorts and one of Michael’s old cut-off band t-shirts. He is still wearing his cleats. The left one is untied.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

It is probably a fair question, considering the fact that Ashton knows it has rang a few times while he has been in the floor. He doesn’t answer Calum, though. He glances in the direction of his phone hidden away on top of the counter. He doesn’t quite know how to explain the fact that it never occurred to him that he should answer the phone—that it might have been Luke or Calum or Michael checking up on him—instead of just let it ring.

Calum looks in the direction Ashton is staring and winces immediately. The countertop is a mess of letters and bank statements and other assorted mail Ashton hasn’t quite gotten around to going through. They are all the things that he hasn’t bothered keeping organized the past few months of virtually living with Calum and Luke and Michael. Ashton thinks he should feel self-conscious about the mess. Calum’s kitchen is never this dirty.

But Ashton doesn’t feel anything other than the cold numbness that has settled over his body.

Calum sighs, turning back to Ashton. It is Ashton’s turn to wince. He kind of hates himself in the worst of ways right now. He has always know that he was pathetic. He has. It is just a truth of life that he has learned to live with. He has tried his hardest to hide this unfortunate truth to Calum and Luke and Michael who have given Ashton more than he has ever been lucky enough to have. There is no hiding it any longer, especially when Calum comes to a stop in front of Ashton.

“Did you vomit in your sink?” asks Calum. He drops down to his knees in front of Ashton. His eyes are so big and so full of concern. He reaches out and gently presses the back of his hand against Ashton’s forehead. “Are you sick?”

It is obvious Ashton isn’t. His skin is chilled. He isn’t flushed. He doesn’t have any of the tell-tale signs of an illness. Calum glances over his shoulder at the array of papers on the counter then again at the kitchen sink. He sighs, looking back at Ashton. He chews on his lips like he wants to ask what is wrong, but in the end, he must sense Ashton doesn’t want to talk about it. He goes a different route instead.

“Let’s get you home, okay?” he says. “You’ll feel better after a nice cuddle.”

He doesn’t inquire any further as to why he found Ashton a failure of an adult on the kitchen floor. He holds his hand out to Ashton, but when Ashton merely proves to only stare at the offered help, Calum puts his hands underneath Ashton’s armpits and hoists him to his feet. Ashton wobbles once upright. He doesn’t fall, because Calum wraps his arm around Ashton’s back and holds him steady. Calum presses a gentle kiss to Ashton’s forehead.

Ashton doesn’t quite understand why Calum is being so good to him when he should be so turned off by the mess of a human being that Ashton is that he should just leave Ashton all alone in his misery on the floor. The truth is that this is who Ashton is. He never gets what he wants, because nobody wants someone as horribly inept as he is. He has tried so hard to prove that he is anything but useless—that he is something the other three should be proud to keep. Now that Calum knows the reality of Ashton’s pitiful life, he shouldn’t want anything to do with it.

“’M sorry,” mumbles Ashton. Calum deserves to know that he is. That he is sorry for leading Calum and Luke and Michael on for so long with lie that Ashton is a desirable human being. He isn’t. He can’t pay his bills, and he can’t shake off the monsters of his past, and he is just a dark speck in the picture perfect life Calum and Luke and Michael have already built with each other.

“Don’t apologize,” says Calum, softly like Ashton is a tiny kitten he is trying to not scare off. “We all have our bad days.”

Ashton can’t imagine Calum ever has days as bad as this. Calum has everything together. He is living with the loves of his life, and he is in the career of his dreams, and he is slowly winning the argument of getting a puppy instead of a kitten. Calum has it all. Ashton doesn’t quite understand why he would want him, too, especially now knowing what an absolute fuck-up Ashton is.

Calum, sensing the direction Ashton’s thoughts have gone, presses another kiss to Ashton’s cheek, barely missing the corner of Ashton’s lips. It is soft and gentle and intimate in all of the ways that Ashton doesn’t deserve. When Calum speaks again, he doesn’t move away, so his breath puffs warm against Ashton’s lips, the caress of a lover that Ashton isn’t worthy of.

“Let’s get you home, he says. “Let’s get you home and all cuddled up where you belong.”


	10. Chapter 10

The drive is silent. Unlike Michael who thrives off noise, Calum is content to say nothing at all. Ashton is curled up as much as he can be in the passenger’s seat, his head resting against the window. He has an overnight bag in the floor at his feet, hastily packed by Calum before they left. Ashton had uselessly sat on the foot of his empty bed in his tiny room and watched as Calum shoved a few articles of clothing into an old duffle bag that had been collecting dust in the floor of Ashton’s closet. Ashton hadn’t needed to bring much, as he has his own toiletries at the house and can wear some of Michael’s clothes if he needs to—not that he does, because most of Ashton’s clothes have migrated to the house as well over the past few months.

The overwhelming numbness still lingers in his body. It exhausts him, almost to the point of sleep, but every time he closes his eyes, he sees that yellow slip of paper. He doesn’t know what he is going to do. He’s being evicted. He can’t pay the rent. His bank account is empty. Drained. He doesn’t even have enough money to pay a taxicab fare for the distance from his tiny apartment to the house.

His phone sets suspiciously quiet in the top of his duffle bag, no returned message from the series of numbers Ashton had recited hours ago. He knows the number is still good, and he knows his message was received. He is pretty sure the person on the other side is getting a right kick out of fucking up Ashton’s life again. He is as sure of that as he is of the fact that he’ll probably never see that money again—and if he does, it won’t be nearly in time to pay his overdue rent.

Ashton has never gotten what he has wanted, even when he thought that was exactly what he did want.

Calum parks the car in the driveway in the space on the far side of the fancy car Michael typically drives. Calum’s car is less flashy and more homey, easily ten years old. There is a dent in the passenger’s side door. The clear paint is chipping off on top, leaving behind a dull undercoated beige color. In the back seat, there is a large reddish brown stain puddled in the fabric. Ashton wonders if Calum has always had this car, if maybe it was the one he drove when he was a teenager. He doesn’t ask.

A true gentleman, Calum opens Ashton’s door for him and shoulders the bag at his feet, not giving Ashton a chance to reach for it. He offers his hand to Ashton to help him out of the car. He is so, so gentle with Ashton that Ashton wants to just break down and cry and demand to know what the catch is here and now. There is always a catch, at least as far as Ashton’s luck goes. He had thought it was that Luke came with an additional two people, but that wasn’t really a problem at all. So that in itself can’t be the catch. It can’t be—because there is nothing bad about Michael and Calum. Catches are always bad.

But he doesn’t say a word. He just lets Calum lead him into the house, because the thing is even if there is a catch, Ashton doesn’t think he’s strong enough to let go of Calum and Luke and Michael. He’s already in too deep. He wants them too much, damn the consequences.

Calum opens the front door for him and ushers him inside. Ashton is pliant underneath Calum’s directions. The moment he steps through the threshold, he gets an armful of Michael. Ashton stumbles underneath the additional, unexpected weight, but Calum catches them both before they fall to the ground, grabbing onto Ashton’s hips to keep them both upright. Through it all, Michael holds tight to Ashton. He doesn’t let go.

“I was so worried. Luke said you weren’t at work—that his boss said you’d called in, but you never, ever miss work, and so Luke tried to call me, but I was helping with customers, and he got a hold of Calum— _thank God_ —and I hurried home as quickly as I could, ‘cause Calum said he’d bring you here, and I didn’t want you to be alone,” says Michael, rushed and all in one breath like he can’t help but to vomit out the words running rampant through his mind.

Ashton is so overcome with _love_ that his knees almost buckle underneath him. He tightens his arms around Michael. He can’t find his voice, because somewhere in the back of his mind, he can’t believe this is reality. Luke cared enough to send somebody to him when he didn’t show up to work—like Luke knew exactly that Ashton needed somebody. It’s even more staggering to comprehend the idea that Calum left training for him or that Michael left his prized shop just to be home waiting on him. Ashton loves these men more than anybody he has ever loved in his entire life.

He doesn’t deserve their love in return, not with the monsters of his past.

“He had me, Mikey,” says Calum when Ashton proves to do nothing except cling to Michael, silent and lost to his own insecurities. “You know, I wasn’t going to just drop him off here and head back to the field, and I promised I’d call you as soon as we got home.”

“But I worry,” says Michael. His face is pressed into the crook of Ashton’s neck, and he doesn’t bother to move it to speak. His words come out strung together. “I had to make sure for myself that he wasn’t, like, dying or something.”

Calum’s fingers tighten around Ashton’s hips, digging into Ashton’s skin until they’re sharp pinpoints of pain. Ashton winces, but neither Michael not Calum notice. Michael, for his part, draws in a quick, gasping breath. Ashton pushes down his own insecurities and focuses on Michael instead. It’s easier.

“I’m not dying,” he says, soothingly. He turns his head so that he can press a gentle kiss to the side of Michael’s face. Michael’s gaze is locked on Calum behind Ashton. “I just—well, received some bad news, I suppose.”

Michael pushes away from Ashton, holding him at arm’s length so that he can look Ashton in the eyes now. Calum loosens his grip on Ashton’s hips, which Ashton is thankful for. The pain fades into nothingness within a few seconds, but Calum doesn’t completely let go, fearful, probably, that Ashton might still collapse to the ground. Ashton’s knees feel unsteady enough that Calum’s fear is probably warranted.

“What kind of bad news?” demands Michael.

Ashton thinks of the yellow slip of paper and the wobbly signature at the bottom of the check he didn’t write and of his dreams of succeeding as a proper adult going up in smoke. He shakes his head in response to Michael’s question. It is none of Michael’s concern if Ashton has a few demons chasing him that he thought he’d left far behind when he’d clawed his way out of the endless cycle of nothingness that had become his life. It’s Ashton’s problem, and it isn’t fair to make Michael or Calum or Luke to bear it, too.

“It’s nothing,” he says, but that’s a lie. This is anything except _nothing_. Ashton doesn’t have any money. He can’t pay rent. He is going to lose his apartment. He is failing in so many ways at proper adulting right now that he feels almost numb to it all, like his body is shutting down instead of dealing with the tidal wave of emotions that are washing over him.

“Ashton, you were—you were _catatonic_ on your kitchen floor,” snaps Calum, angry and worried at the same time. He tightens his grip on Ashton’s hips again. “It’s not nothing.”

“But it is!” insists Ashton. He whips around to face Calum, dislodging Calum’s hold on him. He isn’t going to talk about this. He isn’t going to admit how much of a failure he is to the only people in the entire world who think he is actually worth anything. “It’s just a bad day. Can’t a person have one of those every once in a while?”

Calum opens his mouth to argue, probably, but he snaps it shut in the next second. He sighs and bites his lips together. Ashton thinks maybe he has his victory. It doesn’t feel very satisfying. It doesn’t solve any of problems, either. He is still completely broke, and he is still facing eviction, and he knows that he’s only putting off the inevitable. That he needs to tell Calum and Michael and Luke that he is a failure of an adult. That he can’t do it himself, no matter how hard he’s tried to prove to himself otherwise.

All Ashton wants right now is the nice cuddle he was promised and maybe a nice nap, too, so that he can forget all about his problems for just a little while.

“Of course they can,” says Michael after a beat. He is soft and gentle. He steps up behind Ashton, draping himself across Ashton’s shoulders. “But you don’t have to take on the world by yourself, you know. You’ve got us now, and we’re not going anywhere.”

Ashton closes his eyes, melting back into Michael and feeling so, so protected. He thinks of the check that had drained his bank account, and he thinks of the monster responsible for it, and he doubts that Michael or Calum or Luke would want anything to do with Ashton if they knew the truth. He wouldn’t blame them. On the bad days such as this one, when everything piles up on him in the worst of ways, Ashton doesn’t even want anything to do with himself.

“Let’s head upstairs, okay?” suggests Michael, like he is reading Ashton’s mind.

Or maybe it is that he feels the tension in Ashton’s shoulders. That he can sense how tiny Ashton feels right now and how much Ashton just wants to forget about reality. Michael has always been good at reading people. He can read Calum like the back of his hand, and he always knows when Luke needs to be reminded that he is loved. It seems like Michael knows Ashton almost as much as he knows the other two. The thought fills Ashton’s chest with warmth. It dulls the empty numbness that has settled over Ashton’s body.

Ashton doesn’t give Michael an answer, too lost to amazement that Michael has taken the time to get to learn Ashton’s quirks enough to sense what he can’t say. Michael doesn’t seem to care for a response, though. He steps away from Ashton. He doesn’t go far, trailing his hand down Ashton’s arm to his wrist then wrapping his fingers one-by-one around it. He sets off for the stairs and tugs Ashton after him. Ashton goes willingly, trusting Michael with everything that he has. He lets himself be pulled all the way to the steps then to top of them where Michael stops and glances back down at the ground floor.

“What are you waiting for, Cal? Me to carry you up?”

“You’d drop me,” says Calum.

His voice echoes up to them, chased by a laugh. Calum doesn’t really mean it, or, if he does, he doesn’t actually sound too concerned by the idea that Michael would actually let him fall. He starts heading toward them, starting up the stairs.

“I seem to recall that it was Luke and not me who did that, thank you very much,” says Michael, grinning down at Calum. “And it was your fault anyway—you know good and well that Luke has no control over his limbs, especially if there is tequila involved.”

“Ah. Just one of the many unfortunate tangos with old José,” laments Calum, “but at least Luke was apologetic about it. You laughed your ass off.”

“And yet you let me fuck you anyway,” says Michael, crass but garnering a bout of laughter from Calum nonetheless. The proud grin on Michael’s face undermines any malice the harshness of his words might have carried. “So, really, your argument is only a reflection on yourself, if you think about it.”

Calum guffaws, clearly disagreeing with Michael’s statement, but the glint in his eyes when he meets Ashton’s gaze belies how little offense he has taken. He grins at Ashton. It washes over Ashton like the calm after a storm, and Ashton holds out his hand toward Calum. He wants both of them, their comfort and their strength. When Calum is close enough, he threads his fingers through Ashton’s, and together, the three of them head for the master bedroom.

The sheets are in a disarray, much like Ashton remembers them being yesterday morning when he had crawled out of them. They don’t look like they’ve been touched since then. Perhaps with Michael gone and Calum and Luke both working late, no one had made it far enough to this big, empty bed. Ashton doesn’t know the real reason. He doesn’t ask, either, as Michael gently sits him down on the bed.

Michael and Calum both let go of Ashton’s hands. Ashton mourns the loss, but they don’t go far. They go about removing Ashton’s shoes then his socks and then, together in as adoring of a manner as possible, they remove all of Ashton’s clothes until he is in nothing except his boxers. Michael fishes a discarded shirt from the foot of the bed. It is the big one that Luke had worn night before last. Michael slips it over Ashton’s head until Ashton drowns in it then gently nudges Ashton to get into bed properly.

Ashton is easy under Michael’s directions, as usual, and he lays back on the bed as Calum and Michael undress themselves to join him. Michael doesn’t bother taking off his t-shirt, preferring to leave it on as always, so he climbs into the bed next to Ashton. Calum joins them barely a moment later, stripped down to his boxers. He lays down on the other side of Ashton, and he draws Ashton to him. Ashton goes, of course, and he rests his head on Calum’s chest, his ear right above Calum’s heart. Calum wraps his arms around Ashton in a big, protective hug, and Michael presses himself flush to Ashton’s back, spooning him. His hand finds Calum’s on top of Ashton’s shoulder, and he links their fingers together.

The stress of the day catches up with Ashton, but here, as he is wearing Luke’s shirt and cuddled up with Calum and Michael, Ashton doesn’t feel so bad. For the first time since he stepped outside of his apartment and found the yellow slip of paper, he doesn’t feel like the world is crashing in on him. He feels like, maybe, he can take on anything right now—even the horrendous task of coming up with the money to pay his rent.

Calum hums a soft tune. Ashton doesn’t recognize it, but Michael does. Ashton can feel Michael grin against his neck before Michael joins in. It’s a beautiful melody. It washes all over Ashton, lulls him into closing his eyes, and he drifts off to sleep, into oblivion, all wrapped up in love.

Ashton doesn’t know much after that, not for a while. He knows that the bed shifts at some point, that more weight is added, so it must be Luke joining them. He thinks that maybe he overhears snippets of a fractured conversation—something about _I know what I saw_ and _we’re going to have to be careful_ and _it’s not just us anymore_ —but he is too lost to himself and to the oblivion of sleep to make sense of anything.

Or maybe he doesn’t hear anything at all, because when he finally wakes up, hours later after darkness has fallen outside, he is cradled in Luke’s hold. Michael and Calum are absent from the room. The bed feels scarily big without them. Ashton buries his face even farther into Luke’s neck. He feels raw, left alone in only Luke’s care, but he still feels safe and loved. It’s a disconcerting polarity.

“Wanna talk about it?” asks Luke, gentle and straight to the point like he’s spent the last little bit waiting on this very moment.

Ashton tenses in Luke’s hold, but Luke runs a hand down his back, soothing and kind. The truth is that Ashton doesn’t want to talk about it. Ever. Especially to Luke. He thinks of his empty bank account and of the yellow slip of paper. He doesn’t want to admit how much of a failure he is as an adult. He doesn’t want Luke to be disappointed in him, and Luke would be, if he knew.

“You know you don’t have to do all of this alone, don’t you? Like you’ve got me and Mikey and Cal, and we’re never going to let you down,” says Luke, sill soft and gentle, when Ashton doesn’t speak up first. He is patient with Ashton. “You’ve got to let us in, and trust us.”

Ashton bites his lips together. He wants to tell Luke it isn’t a matter of trusting them—that he does trust them with nearly everything he has—but it’s rather the issue that, if they knew how much of a failure he actually was, they’d hit the road running and wouldn’t look back, and then Ashton would be left all alone. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to lose Luke and Calum and Michael.

He doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches out between them. Twice, Ashton thinks Luke is going to break it, but both times Luke closes his mouth without saying a word. Each time, Luke draws in a long breath and tightens his hold on Ashton like he couldn’t imagine having to ever let go.

Luke is so, so good to Ashton. He’s patient with Ashton when he has every right to demand to know why Calum found Ashton in such a deplorable state earlier. He doesn’t push Ashton to talk anymore, even though Ashton knows he would like to do so. Luke keeps his worries to himself, and he gives everything he can to Ashton instead.

Ashton doesn’t deserve Luke.

There is a soft knock on the door. Ashton peeks above Luke’s shoulder to see Calum and Michael standing in the doorway. Calum is holding a tray of food, four bowls of soup and four glasses of milk. Michael shoots Luke a hopeful look, grinning and wide-eyed. Luke grimaces and shakes his head. The smile on Michael’s face fades.

“How are you feeling?” asks Calum, diverting Ashton’s attention to him as Michael and Luke stare at one another.

Ashton shrugs, because he doesn’t want to lie. He still feels a little numb to everything except for the feel of Luke’s arms around him and the weight of Calum’s gaze on him and the amount of love that permeates the air between them all. Calum doesn’t look particularly surprised by Ashton’s response. He glances down at the tray full of then back up at Ashton.

“I thought you might be hungry.”

Ashton isn’t, actually. The idea of eating anything right now with the knot of anxiety in his stomach makes him want to vomit again. He doesn’t know what he is going to do about paying the late rent or about finding a new place to live or about getting his money back. He is in a race against the clock that he has no chance to win. He isn’t dealing with any of it at the moment. He can’t. All that he can bring himself to do about the whole situation is to ignore it by cuddling and sleeping and naively hope it’ll magically work itself out—it won’t, though, because that’s not how things happen for him.

“I’m starving,” lies Ashton, his voice rough.

The relieved grin Calum gives him in return makes his fib worthwhile. Vaguely, Ashton acknowledges the fact that nobody has ever cared enough to bring him a tray of food, let alone in bed. It should warm Ashton that Calum is so caring—and it does, but the numbness that has taken hold over his body dulls the proper gratitude Ashton should be feeling. He feels like a jackass that he doesn’t feel anything other than numb in regard to such a novel nicety.

Ashton doesn’t deserve Calum, either.

“Is nobody going to address the elephant in the room?” demands Michael, averting his gaze from Luke to Ashton then to Calum and back again. His words have a harsh ring to them, but the overwhelming sadness in his eyes undermines any bite they have. He sounds like a lost kid desperate to be found. “Ashton, you’re being evicted. Shouldn’t we talk about this?”

The bottom drops out of Ashton’s world. He goes rigid in Luke’s hold, his eyes locked with Michael. He swears he forgets how to breathe. Everything around him is crumbling. He is such a disappointment—a failure—and these people _know_ , and Ashton is going to lose everything.

“Don’t say you’re not. Calum saw the paper and the—well, the point is that you’re without a place to live,” continues Michael, tripping over his words. He doesn’t look away from Ashton at all. His eyes are so, so big with concern. His lower lip trembles, and Ashton thinks he might cry—which is ridiculous. Ashton isn’t worth crying over. “And you weren’t going to tell us.”

Ashton can’t take Michael’s heavy gaze, so he has to look away, but looking at Calum isn’t any easier. Gone is Calum’s earlier relief. In its place is the same type of world-stopping worry that stains Michael’s entire being. Ashton hates the look on Calum as much as he does on Michael. They shouldn’t ever be anything but happy.

“You weren’t going to tell us,” repeats Michael, like he thinks that is the most important thing. “Dammit. You’re just like Luke—you make the entire world your problem, and you won’t ask for help when you need it.”

Ashton closes his eyes, because he can’t look at Michael or Calum any longer, and he thinks he might be the one to cry instead. Michael sounds so, so heartbroken over Ashton. Over the fact that Ashton’s problems exist. Ashton hates himself. Michael shouldn’t be sad over him.

“It’s my problem. It’s mine to deal with,” says Ashton, quiet and small.

“But it’s not!” snaps Luke, speaking for the first time. His hold on Ashton is so strong now that Ashton can hardly breathe. “You’re our boyfriend. We _want_ to help you! But we can’t if you don’t tell us when something is wrong.”

Ashton thinks again of the yellow slip of paper and the wobbly signature at the bottom of the world-ending check. He thinks of this perfect life the other three have built together. They’re on opposite ends of the spectrum.

“But there’s nothing you can do,” he says finally. His voice cracks and breaks all over the place, but the words come out relatively coherent. That’s all that matters. “Yeah, I couldn’t pay rent this month, but there’s nothing you can do to fix that. You’re certainly not paying it for me. I’m an adult, dammit.”

“You don’t have to pay,” says Michael.

Ashton snorts, opening his eyes to roll them at Michael’s statement. “Oh, yeah, because I’m sure my landlord is just going to let me live in the apartment for free.”

It’s rude, yes, and Ashton regrets his words immediately. He should never be anything less than nice to Michael who has been so, so good to him. Michael is part of everything Ashton has ever wanted—to be loved and desired in return—and Ashton hates himself for being so cruel to Michael. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Michael, unaffected by Ashton’s sass, speaks up first.

“You should move in.”

Ashton’s breath catches in his throat. He pushes away from Luke ever-so-slightly so that he can see Michael better. The seriousness in Michael’s voice is echoed in his warm smile. Ashton looks at the other two. Calum is nodding his head in agreement, looking every bit as up for the plan as Michael had sounded. Luke, when Ashton turns to him, leans forward and softly presses his lips against Ashton’s forehead, a silent plea for Ashton to say yes. But Ashton can’t.

“I—I—”

“Don’t say you can’t,” says Michael, cutting Ashton off before he can stutter his way through a flat denial, because Ashton can’t believe that such a possibility is on the table of options. “We love you, Ashton, and you’ve spent considerably more time here than at your own place over the past few months, so why pay rent on a place that you’re not using?”

“It’s not that easy,” says Ashton.

“Well, no,” agrees Michael. “I guess the actual moving part will be a pain in the ass, but Calum will do all of the heavy lifting, of course, because he’s a muscle-y man. It’ll probably be a bitch cleaning out all of the junk from the spare bedroom for you, too, but you deserve your quiet space away from the rest of us if you ever need it.”

Michael sounds so hopeful, like he already has their entire future planned out in his head. Ashton feels so, so loved that he can hardly breathe. Michael is perfect before him, rambling on and on about how it’ll be nice to fall asleep every night with all of them piled into one bed instead of spread out across empty rooms. He works himself up. He gets so excited that Calum tears his gaze away Ashton to look fondly at Michael, because Michael is always beautiful, but he is never more beautiful than when he is truly happy about something like he is now.

Ashton doesn’t deserve Michael, either.

“Mike, things don’t come easy to me,” interrupts Ashton, quietly. He is gentle about it unlike how regrettably mean he was earlier. The thing is, however, that Michael has completely misunderstood him. “This almost—this almost feels too good to be true.”

It scares him to say it out loud, but it is the truth. Ashton has never been offered something as gloriously desirable as this. He can’t pay his rent on his empty apartment. He has virtually no money in his bank account. He is totally failing at being an adult. He shouldn’t be given such an easy way out. That isn’t how his luck works.

“It’s not, though,” says Michael. His enthusiasm fades at the grief in Ashton’s self-depreciated tone. Ashton hates that he has made Michael sad again. “We love you, and we want you to move in.”

Ashton is quiet, because he wants so, so badly to say yes—it would solve the problem of him being evicted and having to come up with the rent or find a new place to live—but he doesn’t know if he is brave enough to. He is almost waiting for one of the others to break the façade and laugh in his face and tell him that he’s a failure. That they don’t want him to move in. That they can’t _love_ somebody as deplorable as him.

He is waiting for the shoe to drop, because it always does.

“It’s your choice, of course,” says Calum after a moment. Ashton’s gaze snaps to him, and he offers Ashton a warm half-smile. In his hands, the food on the tray is gradually growing colder. “We don’t ever want to make you do something that you don’t want to do. I mean, we don’t want to move too fast and scare you off. We all talked, and we agreed that this is what we want, but, given that, it doesn’t have to be what you want.”

The words tumble unfiltered from Ashton’s mouth before Ashton can stop them. “It’s never mattered what I’ve wanted before.”

It is the wrong thing to say, because it makes the corners of Calum’s mouth turn down. It makes Michael next to him to look even sadder than he did. It makes Luke tighten his hold on Ashton again and draw him into a hug, one that’s even bigger than any have been beforehand.

“It does now,” Luke says, strong and unwavering. He brushes a soft kiss against the top of Ashton’s head, his face buried in the mess that is Ashton’s curls. Ashton is overcome again with the overpowering feeling of _being loved_. “With us, it always does.”

“Please, move in with us,” says Michael for a final time, like he knows it’s just enough of a prod to finally draw the truth from Ashton. “We want you to, and I think you might want to, too.”

Ashton does. Michael is so, so good at reading him. It should be unfair—Michael pulling out every stop he knows—but it isn’t. It feels nice to be lobbied for, especially because Ashton has never really had anybody rooting for him, and that’s exactly what Michael and Luke and Calum are doing right now.

Ashton has never felt so loved in his entire life. He wants to freeze this moment in time forever so that he never has to feel anything but this all-encompassing love for the rest of his days. But maybe he doesn’t need to go that far. Maybe this love is here to stay. He hopes it is.

“Yeah,” says Ashton, and the single word is terrifying enough to make him curl even farther into Luke’s hold. He has never meant anything more in his life. “I want to move in.”

Luke’s response is immediate. He draws back from Ashton enough to crash their lips together, and he kisses Ashton with everything he has, happy and loving. Ashton kisses back just as hard, but they’re soon interrupted by Michael who yelps a victorious _yes!_ as he launches himself at the bed. He hits it hard and bounces back up almost immediately, but he crawls over to dog pile on top of Luke and Ashton undeterred. Luke laughs against Ashton’s lips when they part. Michael eagerly kisses Ashton next, and his kiss tastes like a _future together_.

Calum joins them when they’ve settled down and it is safe to bring the food to the bed. They all untangle from one another so that they can have some elbow room to eat. Neither Luke not Michael go very far from Ashton, sitting as close as possible on either side of him. Calum sits the tray down in the middle of the bed before he crawls onto the foot of it, facing the others. He distributes the bowls of soup to each of them before he takes his own.

Together, they eat the soup like it is a celebratory dinner from a five-star restaurant. It’s homemade, unlike the bland stuff Ashton makes out of a can when he is left to his own devices, and it tastes so delicious that Ashton can hardly contain himself to eat it at a normal pace. Luke and Michael seem to have the same problem.

They all praise Calum for the meal, and Calum grins proudly, happy that they like the soup so much. As they eat, they talk about anything and everything. About Luke’s boring day at work. About the new shipment Michael got in for his store. About the awesome goal Calum scored at training earlier today.

But they don’t talk about Ashton’s eviction or why it is that he doesn’t have the funds to cover the rent. They should, probably, but Ashton has said enough about his problems for the day. The others sense that he doesn’t want to say anything more, so, thankfully, they don’t push him for any more tonight. There will be time for that at a future date.

Later, after all of the soup has been eaten and Calum has carried the dishes down to the kitchen to be done up tomorrow, they all get pile into the big master bed and sleep side-by-side for the first night with everybody permanently under one roof. It feels like the first night of the rest of their lives.


	11. Chapter 11

Ashton wakes up the next morning alone in bed with Luke. The cool sheets on the other side of him suggest that Calum and Michael have been gone for a while. Ashton sleepily glances at the alarm clock and notes that he should be getting up now if he wants to shower before work. It feels like any other normal morning. Ashton rolls over to press a soft kiss to Luke’s lips, and Luke, still fast asleep, makes a half-attempt to kiss him back. Ashton pats Luke’s chest in consolation. He knows better than to expect Luke to be coherent enough to love him before he has even opened his eyes for the first time of a morning.

He crawls out of bed, making sure to tuck the covers back over Luke so that Luke won’t get too cold all by himself. He ambles toward the main bathroom, where he typically showers when he stays over—and he smiles to himself as he remembers that he lives here now. He will get to shower in this bathroom for the rest of forever. It sounds like a good plan to him.

Most of the doors along the hallway are shut, but Ashton has come to learn that Luke and Calum and Michael prefer to keep them that way. The closed doors probably help control the temperature of the house, at least around the thermostat, so Ashton figures it’s an economical choice. His tiny apartment didn’t really have enough separate rooms for him to worry with keeping any one of them shut off. There is so much more space here, though.

He hums to himself as he nears the bathroom. Off in his own little world in his head, he doesn’t bother knocking before he opens the door. He assumes Calum and Michael are already downstairs like usual—they’re always early risers—but he is wrong.

They’re not downstairs. They’re in the shower. The glass shower door is foggy from the steam of the hot water, but it’s clear enough that Ashton can see the picturesque sight—one that will be forever frozen in his memory. He can’t look away.

Naked and wet, Calum is on his knees for Michael, and Michael is propped up against the wall, one hand fisted in Calum’s soaked hair, the other grasping the wall. Michael’s head is thrown back. He moans out Calum’s name mixed with a string of profanities all tangled together. It’s a beautiful sound.

Ashton lets his eyes trail down Michael’s naked body, admiring the stretch of normally pale skin and the way it’s flushed a blotchy red. The color looks good on Michael—as good as Calum’s hand splayed out wide across Michael’s tummy does—and Ashton feels his own body react to the arousing sight before him. He wants to join in. He knows he could, but he thinks of Luke all alone in bed, and he doesn’t.

Michael moans Calum’s name one last time then stills, eyes popping open to meet Ashton’s through the foggy glass. Michael goes for a cocky smirk, but he is too bliss out in the throes of his orgasm to achieve anything other than a pleased smile. Ashton’s breath catches in his throat. His face burns at the fact that he’s been caught, but the whole ordeal is too pleasing for him to turn around and leave now—apparently he likes a little voyeurism, which is probably for the best considering the nature of their relationship.

He drops his gaze to Calum, who is still on his knees with Michael’s softening cock in his mouth. He stays there, jerking himself off, until Michael is too sensitive for his mouth. Michael pushes Calum away. Calum moves to rest his forehead against Michael’s hip. It’s intimate, the way he leans against Michael and stares up at Michael through his big brown eyes, the way Calum’s hand has never left Michael’s tummy. Calum’s breaths come in short pants. His hand is shaky on his cock as he works it over, and just as Ashton wonders whether Calum even knows that he is being watched, Calum grunts and comes all over his fist.

“Enjoy the show, Ash?” asks Michael. His voice is rough, his vocal cords overused in the most beautiful of ways. Ashton’s eyes snap back up to him, and Michael manages the smirk this time. “Should have joined in.”

Ashton stutters around, face burning and body aching. He wants to tell Michael that he had considered joining in, but it hadn’t felt right to exclude Luke—not since it was the three of them and not since it would have been Ashton’s first time with any of them. Ashton isn’t old-fashioned by any means. He’s had sex before. Granted, he hasn’t ever had sex with a romantic partner, let alone three, but he isn’t a stranger to other hands on his body. Ashton wants his first time with Michael and Calum to also be his first time with Luke. They’re all best when they’re all together.

“Be nice, Mikey,” murmurs Calum, soft and fond and still riding the high of his post-orgasmic state. Calum glances over his shoulder at Ashton. It seems to take him a monumental amount of effort to do so. The smug lilt to his voice belies that he was very aware of Ashton’s presence the entire time. “It’s not nice to tease.”

“Wasn’t teasing,” says Michael.

Calum shakes his head fondly at Michael. The shower continues to rain down on them. It has already washed away remnants of their passion. Ashton vaguely wonders how far along in their shower they are and whether or not he is going to have any hot water left to take his own. He doesn’t ask, though, because seeing Michael and Calum together trumps any possibility of a hot shower, even if such a sight has left Ashton sexually aroused with no intention of relief any time soon—at least until he takes his own shower.

After a few more seconds of leaning against Michael, Calum goes to stand. Ashton has to imagine Calum’s knees are aching by now. His suspicions are confirmed whenever Calum grunts as he starts to unbend his legs. Ashton winces on Calum’s behalf. He knows how uncomfortable a hard floor can be on one’s knees after too long of a time.

Michael reaches out to help Calum to his feet. He has more time to recover from his orgasm, so he has a little more control over his general body than Calum does his. Calum graciously takes the help, and that’s when it happens. Calum’s hand moves at the wrong time, and Ashton glimpses a jagged, faint pink scar running diagonally along Michael’s tummy, beginning in the dip of his right hip and ending just above his belly button.

The bottom falls out of Ashton’s world, and he freefalls with it. He lets out a startled gasp, so loud that he imagines it echoes in the tiny bathroom. It must, because Michael and Calum turn to face Ashton. It takes Calum only a fraction of a second longer to realize what he has done, and he rushes to cover back up the scar as if that by itself could erase the image burned into Ashton’s memory.

But it’s too late. Ashton has already seen it. He’ll never forget it. He entertains the idea that he has never once, until now, seen Michael without a shirt. That Michael always sleeps in a t-shirt no matter how much Calum and Luke and sometimes Ashton are comfortable in just boxers. That Michael never changes his clothes whenever he’s in the same room as Ashton.

Ashton’s eyes go wide. He glances up to meet Michael’s, and Michael is staring back at him with the same horror Ashton feels welling up in his own chest. Ashton stumbles farther into the room, desperate to get to Michael. He _has to get to him_. He needs to touch him, to know that Michael _is okay_.

Michael cowers back against the wall, the water from the shower pouring down his face. Ashton’s heart skips a beat in his chest. Michael’s terrified expression feels like a drop-kick straight into Ashton’s stomach. Ashton vaguely thinks that this is a secret they’ve kept from him—that there is a reason for that—but he doesn’t care. He knows about it now, and he can’t stop himself from drawing back the shower door and crowding into Michael’s space and getting himself drenched in the process.

Calum steps in front of him, forever Michael’s personal shield. Calum’s defensive posture steals the air from Ashton’s lungs, because _Ashton isn’t a threat_ and _Calum should know that_. _Michael should know that_. Ashton glances down at Michael’s stomach, having to crane his neck over Calum’s shoulder to be rewarded with the sight. It’s even scarier up close, the scar. Crooked and pink, the sight of it—its existence and what it must have meant at one time for Michael—terrifies Ashton to his bones. Ashton doesn’t blame Calum for being so protective.

“Mikey…” Ashton breathes, heartbroken and terrified and wanting nothing more than to just gather Michael up in his arms and never, ever let go. But Calum is still there separating them, and Michael is still cowering into the wall. Ashton has a thousand questions running rampant through his mind. _What happened? Who did this? Why didn’t you tell me?_ But all that Ashton has the ability to do is repeat, “Mikey…”

Michael bites his lips together. His forehead crinkles, like he’s close to crying. Or maybe he is crying and the shower is just washing away his tears before they’re discernable. Michael reaches out for Calum’s hand, and Calum is there immediately, strong and protective and loving. Michael can’t look away from Ashton.

“Didn’t want to scare you off,” he says. His voice is broken. It’s quiet, and Ashton can barely hear it over the rush of water. “It’s ugly.”

Ashton has to agree with Michael on that. The scar _is_ ugly. It’s ugly because it’s proof that something so horrible happened to Michael, and nothing bad should ever happen to someone as goodhearted as Michael. To someone who has so much love that one person can’t possibly bear that load on their own.

But Ashton doesn’t think this is Michael’s reasoning.

“It’s not,” says Ashton, and Michael opens his mouth to disagree, but Ashton doesn’t give him the chance. “It’s scary, but there is nothing about you that is ugly. You’re beautiful. The scar doesn’t change that.”

Michael crumbles. He falls forward. Calum is there to catch him, his hands underneath Michael’s armpits, but Calum isn’t enough. Michael reaches for Ashton, and Ashton goes to him immediately, taking Michael by the hand and wrapping his other arm around Michael. He wants to keep Michael safe forever. Here, sandwiched between himself and Calum, Ashton thinks that this is a pretty good start for keeping Michael safe.

“People are mean,” whispers Michael, terrified and small right into Ashton’s ear.

 _Yeah, they are_ , agrees Ashton, but he doesn’t say it out loud. He can’t. He can only hold Michael tighter. He isn’t sure he wants to know exactly how _mean_ people have to be to hurt Michael. He isn’t sure he can handle such information, not now while his entire heart is shattering at the mere fact that people were mean enough to him to leave such a scary-looking scar.

Helpless of anything to say, Ashton turns his head to press a soft kiss against Michael’s cheek. For once, Michael isn’t greedy. He doesn’t try to usurp it into something more heated. He lets Ashton give him what Ashton wants and doesn’t ask for anything else. It’s almost like he doesn’t think he deserves it now that Ashton knows the secret he’s kept hidden beneath his ever-present t-shirt. That is ridiculous. Michael deserves the world. Ashton will give him everything he can.

There is a story behind the scar, Ashton knows and _fears_ , but neither Michael nor Calum come forth with it. Michael doesn’t seem up for much else other than just existing, trusting Calum and Ashton to keep him upright. When Ashton looks past Michael to Calum, he finds Calum staring back at him, face blank. Ashton feels like this is a test. Like everything depends on his next move as far as Calum is concerned. Maybe it does.

Ashton doesn’t want to fuck everything up—because he loves these people too much to lose them—so he doesn’t ask for the story. He isn’t even sure he would get the truth even if he were to be brave enough to ask, so instead, he plays it safe, and he hopes beyond all hopes that it’s enough to garner Calum’s approval.

The thing is, though, that he has no idea what to say to comfort Michael, so he goes for the simplest truth he knows, and he says, “I love you, Mikey.”

Apparently, it is enough for Calum, who untangles himself from between Michael and Ashton. He doesn’t go far. He can’t, actually, with Michael clinging to him like his life depends on it. Calum merely wraps his arm around Ashton and strengthens the hug. Somewhere deep inside Ashton’s heart, he knows it should be stronger. That Michael needs Luke right now, but Luke is asleep, oblivious, across the hall. This will have to do for now.

The shower is still going, though the steam has dissipated since both the shower door and the one to the actual bathroom are standing wide open. Michael and Calum are naked as the days they were born, and Ashton himself is soaked through his sleeping clothes. The hug itself is nice, though most things about it are wet and cold. Michael shivers against them. Ashton remembers the time, and he pulls back from the others. It’s difficult to do so—he’d love to hold Michael for the rest of forever—but he knows he has to let go for now. They all have work in just a short little while.

“I love you, Mikey,” he says again, because it’s important that he reminds Michael this every chance he gets. “I love everything about you—the good and the not-so-good and everything in between. Cal and Luke, too.”

There are probably dozens of other things that Ashton should say right now—maybe even ask why Michael and Calum and Luke kept this a secret from him for so long—but he doesn’t say any of them. There will be time for that later. Michael doesn’t look up for much questioning right now, not with how vulnerable he seems in the wake of Ashton’s discovery.

So Ashton doesn’t ask. He pushes aside his curiosity as he untangles himself completely from Michael. He lets his fingers ghost over the scar on Michael’s tummy, because it’s right there and he has to feel it for himself. Michael shivers but doesn’t draw back. Ashton bends down to place the lightest of kisses against the top of the scar, and he wishes he could do more, like maybe kiss it away forever for Michael’s sake.

When Ashton stands back up, Michael is looking at him in awe. Ashton ducks back in for one final lip-to-lip kiss. Michael grins against him and commandeers it into something more filthy, his tongue sliding hot against Ashton’s. It steals the breath from Ashton’s lungs until it becomes too much, and Ashton has to draw back.

“I’m going to go shower in the ensuite,” says Ashton. He grins at Michael then at Calum. “We’re still having breakfast together as usual, right? I mean, your sexual escapades don’t ruin my chances of pancakes, do they?”

Calum laughs. Any remaining tension in the room dissipates instantly. He shoves Ashton away, fondly like he would like to drag Ashton closer instead.

“I’ll make you something special this morning, all right?”

“Promise?” asks Ashton, grinning.

He is already backing out of the room, one-foot-behind the other until he is in the doorway once more. He hovers there, waiting on Calum’s response. It comes just as he knows it will, Calum’s voice rich with leftover laughter.

“Promise.”

Ashton thinks, one last time, that Michael and Calum look good together, naked and wrapped around one another underneath the shower head. He smiles at them both as he steps farther out into the hallway. He closes the door after him and heads back toward the master bedroom.  

Luke is unfortunately missing from the bed when Ashton enters the room. Ashton had hoped to steal another sleepy kiss before he hopped in the shower, but he has no luck there. Luke is probably changing in the next room over, where he keeps his clothes since, apparently, master closets aren’t big enough for three grown men’s belongings. Ashton understands that, he supposes. He has seen Michael’s collection of band t-shirts and Calum’s equally impressive collection of jerseys.

Ashton makes his way to the ensuite bath. The linen closet is piled high with unused towels, like Calum and Luke and Michael prefer to keep it completely full at all times. Ashton grins at the fact that he has stumbled upon another one of their quirks. He picks the topmost towel, standing on his tiptoes to make sure the entire stack doesn’t fall down on his head in the process. He throws it over the bar next to the tub before he strips himself of his drenched sleeping clothes. He leaves them in a pile in the floor, carefully pushed to the side so that they are out of the way. He will pick them up later and put them through the wash. 

He climbs into the shower, pulling the door shut behind him. There are entirely too many knobs and buttons, but after a few wrong choices, Ashton finally has the shower working to his liking. All of his toiletries are in the other bathroom, so he picks from the variety of nearly-full bottles in here. He showers hastily, because he was promised breakfast before work. As he is lathering himself up with the body wash he had found in the back corner of the tub, he considers jerking himself off to the memory of Calum on his knees for Michael. He doesn’t. He rinses himself off instead.

A little while later, when comes Ashton downstairs, dressed for the day in a pair of his own jeans and one of Michael’s button-up shirts, the others are already seated around the table. There is a steaming plate of chocolate chip pancakes set in the place that Ashton has claimed as his own at the table. Ashton licks his lips in anticipation, his mouth watering already. Calum has made good on his promise, just like Ashton knew he would.

Michael, seated to Ashton’s right, grins at him as he shoves a large bite of his own pancakes into his mouth. Ashton’s cheeks flush, but he isn’t actually embarrassed at how excited he is for the pancakes. Calum’s cooking is always delicious. Chocolate chip pancakes are his favorite, especially the ones Calum makes.

Ashton reaches for his fork. He is three bites in before he realizes the tension in the room, particularly between Luke and Calum’s quieted conversation. He freezes with his next fork-load of pancakes poised at his lips when Luke snaps. Luke’s voice is loud all of a sudden, a stark contrast to the previously muted chatter.

“You’ve got to be—”

“What? _More careful_?” mocks Calum, ugly and angry and equally loud. “Get your head out of your ass. Mikey and I don’t need your permission every time we have sex. I mean, it was just a blow job in the shower, for heaven’s sake!”

Luke bites his lips together and looks away. He folds his arms over his chest. Perhaps he means to look indifferent or maybe defensive, but he doesn’t look anything other than _hurt_. He doesn’t say anything else. His cheeks burn a bright red. He refuses to look at Michael or Ashton, either.

Calum sighs, his anger dissipating. He sighs. It sounds regret. He glances over at Michael, who has watched this exchange with a growing look of horror on his face. Calum winces. He turns back to Luke.

“Look, I’m—”

“Drop it, okay?” snaps Luke. He stands up from the table, his movements stilted. He can’t bring himself to look at anybody. “I’m going to go finish getting ready.”

Luke leaves. Nobody stops him. Ashton thinks that somebody should call after him, but he can’t find his own voice. Luke’s shoulders are slouched like a defeated man. He takes his retreat and doesn’t look back.

Ashton doesn’t quite feel like finishing breakfast anymore.

“You promised, Cal,” says Michael, softly, staring in the direction Luke had disappeared.

Calum groans. He drops his head to his hands. Ashton can’t see his face too well from this angle, but he think Calum’s bottom lip might be trembling. That’s new. Ashton has never seen Calum so emotional. Calum is always strong and protective of the others, especially of Michael. Ashton has always seen Calum as unmovable, nearly untouchable. Now, however, Calum is anything but.

“I know,” says Calum with his head still in his hands. His voice is all wobbly, wrecked in the most heartbreaking of ways. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not me you should apologize to,” says Michael.

He, too, stands up from the table. He goes to leave the kitchen, patting Calum once on the shoulder as he passes by. Calum shudders underneath Michael’s touch, but it is a brief thing. Michael is gone before Calum looks up from his plate. His eyes are reddening.

Ashton is glued to his seat. He didn’t go after Luke, though he should have. Now, Michael is hopefully rectifying that. Ashton is left with Calum, but Ashton doesn’t have a clue what to say. It is the common theme of the morning, apparently.

“Fuck,” murmurs Calum. He clears his throat and meets Ashton’s gaze. “I don’t suppose you could forget that happened? I swear, I’m not a bastard. I didn’t— _fuck_. I didn’t mean to hurt Luke. Now, I’ve gone and hurt Michael, too. I don’t ever want to hurt him.”

Ashton sighs, taking pity on the emotional mess of a man that Calum is before him. He reaches across the table to lay his hand on Calum’s, and Calum jumps, startled by the contact. Calum tries for a rueful smile, but he doesn’t quite manage it with the sorrow saturating his expression.

“I fucked up,” says Calum.

“Yeah,” agrees Ashton, because he can’t quite get the image of Luke defeated and hurt retreating from the kitchen. He knows Calum can’t either, and there is no reason in denying the truth. “But Michael is right. Just apologize to Luke. You know he loves you.”

Calum sighs. He glances toward the doorway that leads out to the staircase. He frowns, turns his attention back to his plate, and picks up his fork. He cuts his stack of pancakes into an uneven triangle-shaped bite then slops it through the syrup until it is nice and evenly coated. He glances up at Ashton and changes the subject.

“I’ll take off work early this evening, and Michael is going to close up shop a little early, so we’ll head over to your apartment after you get off work to help you pack up. Figure between the four of us, it shouldn’t take us more than a couple of evenings to move everything over here.”

Just like that, Ashton is brought back to reality. He has been evicted from his home. While it isn’t as world-ending as it had been this time yesterday morning when he’d first gotten the news—he at least has a solution to the problem now—his heart still twists at the idea that he is totally failing as an adult. Again. It’s even worse that Calum and Luke and Michael—the only people who have ever bothered to believe in Ashton—know that now, too.

“Hey, don’t do that, okay? Don’t be so hard on yourself,” says Calum. He is gentle with Ashton, and it reminds Ashton of how Calum had been with Michael earlier in the shower. How he is with Michael all of the time. It’s a stark contrast to how harsh he had been with Luke. Perhaps he is overcompensating now in his guilt, desperate to not be so callous again. “You don’t have to take on the world by yourself.”

Ashton thinks of all of the times he did have to take on the world himself. He thinks of all of the lies and the manipulations. He digs his phone out of his pocket, careful to keep it underneath the table out of Calum’s sight, and he checks to see if there is a message waiting on him. There isn’t. He isn’t surprised, but it hurts all the same like it did that very first time.

“None of us do anymore, right?” asks Ashton, pocketing his phone and looking back up at Calum.

For a moment, Calum is silent. He stares at Ashton, his eyes flitting down toward the table, where, underneath it, Ashton’s phone is burning a hole in his pocket. When he meets Ashton’s eyes again, he nods his head once but not again.

“Right.”


	12. Chapter 12

Calum makes everybody lunch as he usually does, but Luke doesn’t bother stopping in the kitchen to pick it up before he heads out of the door. Probably expecting as much, Calum tries to catch Luke before he leaves; however, Calum has barely stepped out of the kitchen when Luke makes his escape outside. Calum frowns, still beating himself up over being so short with Luke earlier. He gives Luke’s lunch to Ashton instead. Ashton grimaces at the miserable expression on Calum’s face, and he kisses Calum’s cheek.

“Tell him you love him, all right?” requests Calum, staring at the closed door. “Tell him you love him, because he won’t believe me right now, and he should be reminded that he is loved.”

“He knows you love him,” says Ashton. While he doesn’t like Calum being sad, he also doesn’t think he is using empty words for the sake of comfort. “One argument isn’t going to change that.”

Calum shifts his gaze to Ashton. For a long moment, he stares at Ashton, and Ashton thinks that Calum is going to say something. Perhaps Calum wants to contradict him, because Calum is feeling especially bad about arguing with Luke earlier.

In the end, Calum doesn’t. He leans forward to press a kiss to Ashton’s cheek. It is barely there before Calum turns abruptly on his heel and heads up the stairs. He doesn’t bother looking back at Ashton, but Ashton watches him the entire time. He doesn’t miss the way Calum stops near the top to glance at the door one last time like maybe he is contemplating storming outside and demanding that Luke know Calum loves him. He doesn’t. He disappears upstairs instead.

Ashton heads the other direction, toward the door, because he needs to get to work. Luke is already waiting for him in Michael’s sleek black car. Ashton doesn’t quite know how Michael is going to get to the store this morning—if he even has to go today—but he doesn’t figure it matters as he climbs into the passenger’s seat. Michael probably told Luke to take the car.

First thing, Ashton leans over the console first thing to press a kiss to Luke’s lips, but Luke falls back out of Ashton’s reach with a pained frown on his own face. Ashton freezes. He feels like he has stepped right into the middle a frozen lake and the ice is giving away underneath his weight. His chest tightens up with rejection. He sits back in his seat properly and doesn’t miss how Luke looks anywhere but at him the entire drive to the office.

Once parked, Luke goes to immediately jump out of the car, but Ashton hits the lock button before Luke can move. Luke reaches for the handle anyway. The door pops open without any hindrance. Ashton reaches across the cab to pull it back shut before Luke can so much as start to get out. Luke glares back at him. An echo of betrayal glints in his eyes. It reminds Ashton of this morning at the breakfast table when Luke had regarded Calum in the exact same manner. Ashton’s heart leaps to his throat.

“Hey, I love you,” says Ashton, because it is something Luke needs to hear. Even more so, it is something of which Luke needs to be reminded. “So does Cal and Mikey. They didn’t—I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm by messing around in the shower this morning.”

Luke snorts. It is an ugly, self-depreciating sound that makes Ashton’s stomach churn. Luke can’t bring himself to look Ashton in the eye, so he lets his gaze rest on a fixed point above Ashton’s shoulder. He doesn’t make a move to get out of the vehicle, however, so Ashton counts this as a minor win.

“Calum was beating himself up pretty badly after you left the table,” says Ashton when Luke doesn’t speak. “And he told me to tell you that he loves you.”

Calum didn’t actually, but Luke doesn’t need to know that. Ashton knows that is what Calum had wanted to tell Luke but wasn’t brave enough to. That has to be it, because Calum _does_ love Luke. He lets Luke be the little spoon whenever they cuddle on the couch and Michael is tied up at the record store. He packs Luke a lunch every morning, and he makes sure to buy wheat bread every time he goes to the store even though Luke is the only one who eats it. Most importantly, though, Calum kisses Luke like there is something reverent about him—like Calum himself doesn’t feel worthy enough to be kissed by Luke—and if that doesn’t show how much Calum loves Luke, Ashton doesn’t know what would.

“Can we just—just not talk about this?” asks Luke, sounding small and like he would much rather be anywhere else in the entire world. It makes Ashton’s heart ache in his chest. “We’re going to be late.”

“Luke—”

But Luke is already pushing Ashton away from his door and opening it and climbing out of the vehicle. He doesn’t wait around Ashton or even let on as if he had heard Ashton call his name. Ashton sighs to himself, his stomach churning because Luke doesn’t believe he is loved right now, and that is the farthest from the truth. Luke is so, so loved. It is a shame that he doesn’t know it.

Luke, however, is right about being late. Ashton hurries after him, locking the car before he shuts his door. The last thing they need today is for somebody to steal Michael’s fancy car. Given the way this morning has gone, Ashton wouldn’t be particularly surprised to come back out here after work to find this spot empty.

Ashton catches up with Luke by the time they reach the building. Their lunches, packed away in identical blue lunchboxes, dangle from his left hand. Luke doesn’t say a word as they enter the building. Neither does he speak when they reach the elevator. Ashton stands next to him, equally silent, but he makes sure that their shoulders are touching. It is nothing except a friendly gesture. He knows Luke’s odd rules about public displays of affection at the workplace, and even if Ashton doesn’t agree with how stringent he is with the rules, Ashton knows better than to push them now when nothing this morning has gone Luke’s way. He settles for the slight brush of their shoulders and prays it will be enough.

They exit the elevator as a pair and walk down the hallway side-by-side as if it were any other morning. Cassidy is noticeably absent from her office. She never fails to greet Ashton every morning as they pass, but this morning, the door to her office is shut, and the lights are turned off. Ashton doesn’t think anything about it.

Ashton follows Luke into their shared office. He makes a bee line for the mini refrigerator and places their lunch inside so that the sandwiches won’t get warm before lunch. The lunchboxes themselves are, of course insulated, but Ashton unpacks the brown paper bag from inside each of them and places them on the shelf. He leaves the lunchboxes setting on the floor underneath the corner of his desk.

He needs to go to Jimmy’s office, as per Jimmy’s request yesterday on the phone. He turns toward Luke to tell him such, but a knock on the door interrupts him. It is Jimmy himself.

“I have a scheduled meeting that is due to start in about five minutes, so I thought it would be more practical for me to stop by here rather than wait on you to come to my office,” says Jimmy. He seems a bit flustered this morning. There is a stack of poorly sorted papers clutched underneath his right arm. He doesn’t even bother glancing in Luke’s direction, not even to regard Luke distastefully as he typically does. “I need you to work on a project with Cassidy. She’s already set up in the conference room. She should walk you through everything.”

“Me?” repeats Ashton.

“Yes,” says Jimmy, still rushed. “The big man upstairs requested you personally, funnily enough. Just goes to show how closely the CEO actually watches things around here. He’s a good man.”

Struck by confusion, Ashton opens his mouth to inquire more—especially about the part where he was personally chosen to work on this mysterious work project—but Jimmy waves him off.

“I’m in a hurry. Cassidy will explain everything,” says Jimmy, and then disappears from the doorway.

Ashton wants to call after him. He doesn’t. He turns back around to face Luke, but Luke isn’t looking at him. The tense set of Luke’s shoulders belie the tough morning he has had. Ashton’s stomach churns with the realization that he isn’t going to get to spend the entire day reminding Luke that he is loved.

“I can turn down the offer,” says Ashton, quietly.

Luke’s back is still to Ashton, and Ashton really, really wishes he would turn around. Everything feels off-kilter since Luke and Calum’s fight this morning. Nothing that Ashton has tried thus far has improved Luke’s standoffish mood. Jimmy’s proposition, probably purposefully made in front of Luke, has only worsened the tension that is thick in the air.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Luke. He might as well be speaking to his computer screen instead of Ashton. “Working with Cassidy is an amazing opportunity. Might even lead to a promotion in the future.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I don’t need to be babysat,” snaps Luke. He shoots a glare over his shoulder. His gaze meets Ashton’s for a split second, and Ashton takes half of a step back at the intensity of the fire in Luke’s eyes. Luke turns back around to face his computer. “I’m perfectly capable of being the odd one out. I have been for a while.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asks Ashton, much softer than he has thus far spoken. It is hard to speak any louder with the way his heart has leapt up into his throat.

Luke sighs. His shoulders are rigid even as he curls in on himself. Ashton wants nothing more than to gather Luke up in his arms and kiss his forehead and comfort him. Luke looks like he needs it. He hasn’t had the best morning between fighting with Calum and losing Ashton’s company. He probably feels a little bit like an abandoned puppy that is cast aside because nobody loves him. That is all wrong. Ashton loves him with his entire heart.

But Ashton also knows that Luke would not be favorable to a hug right now in the middle of their workplace where Luke has strictly forbidden public displays of affection.

“Luke—”

“It’s nothing, okay? Just go do your job. I’m sure Cassidy is waiting on you.”

Yeah, Cassidy probably is, but Ashton doesn’t care. Luke looks like he is a good mean word away from breaking completely down. Ashton can’t abandon him, not when the entire cruel world rests on Luke’s shoulders.

“I love you,” says Ashton, at a loss for how else to proceed.

He says it low enough that his voice won’t carry out into the hallway, but he knows Luke can hear him by the way Luke half-turns his head toward Ashton’s direction. A small, sad smile forms on Luke’s face, and, though it is beautiful, it breaks Ashton’s heart. Luke shouldn’t be sad.

“I know you do,” says Luke. “Really, though, you should join Cassidy in the conference room. You have a lot of work ahead of you.”

Ashton sighs, sensing that Luke won’t take no for an answer. He lets Luke have this victory. Maybe Luke needs something to go his way for once this morning. If Ashton can’t give him anything else right now, he will give him this.

“All right. I’ll be back for lunch at our usual time. I don’t care what Cassidy says. I’m eating lunch in here with you. Cal packed us your favorite.”

Luke hums in his throat, but it is more of an acknowledgement that Ashton said anything than an agreement. Ashton leaves anyway. There isn’t anything else he can do. Luke wants him gone, so Ashton will go for now. Perhaps Luke just needs some time alone to recollect himself before he really does break down.

It is only when Ashton has made it all the way to the conference room that he realizes Luke did not say I love you back. It is probably nothing. A slip of the tongue. Or maybe Luke knows that Ashton knows that Luke loves him, so he had not seen any need in reassuring Ashton of such an obvious truth.

Either way, the omission makes Ashton’s stomach churn.

“Surprised Hemmings let you out of his sight,” greets Cassidy as Ashton enters the conference room. “He’s awfully possessive of you.”

Everything is already set up in here. The laptops they will need to use and the stacks of files containing all of the information they will have to sort through are scattered across the conference room table, split in half. She has probably chosen the less boring stacks for herself. Or, maybe, she chose them at random. She rambles on for a moment about exactly what this project is. By the time she stops to catch her breath, Ashton has one ultimatum.

“Let’s get something straight, okay? You shut up about Luke, and I will help you. If you say one mean word about him, then I’m gone. I don’t give a damn who picked me to do this. This is outside of my hired duties, and I don’t have to assist you with this project. I’m really only here to make your life easier.”

Cassidy freezes, glancing up at Ashton with raised eyebrows. There is a glint of _something_ in her eyes that echoes pride. She appears as if she is impressed by Ashton’s bravery to play hard ball—to lay everything out on the table and commit to walking away. Perhaps it isn’t mere appearance. Perhaps she really is impressed.

“Fair enough,” she says, because she knows as well as Ashton himself knows that she _needs_ his help or she will never, ever complete this project by the deadline. Her lips begin to stretch into a smile. “Answer me one question: is there something going on between you and Hemmings—uh, _Luke_?”

“Why? If I say yes are you going to spread nasty rumors behind my back like you do to him?”

Cassidy’s smile disappears instantly, and the glint in her eyes dulls into something else that Ashton doesn’t care to decipher. He folds his arms across his chest, attempting to seem more imposing than he actually is. He doesn’t care if the office knows he is involved with Luke and, therefore, Luke’s polyamorous lifestyle. He is proud of his love for Luke and for Michael and for Calum. He isn’t going to let the narrow-minded opinion of people he does not care about affect him. He is happy, and that is all that matters.

“Of course not,” she says in a manner that questions why he would even think as much in the first place. Ashton feels like snorting, because it is obvious why he would be hesitant to answer this question, but she continues speaking over any response Ashton might have had. “You know that’s not why we—why Luke is—well, that’s not why Luke isn’t the, uh… most popular person here, right? I mean, given _who_ he is, that should be obvious enough. Nobody really likes—”

“I don’t care what nobody likes,” interrupts Ashton, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “To answer your question, yes, there is something going on between me and Luke. Now, can we get to work on this or am I going to have to tell Jimmy to shove this opportunity up his ass?”

Cassidy looks like she wants to say more on the previous topic, but she bites her lips together, probably sensing that Ashton doesn’t want to hear anything else. Ashton sighs, shaking his head, and he goes to turn on his heel to stalk up to whatever meeting Jimmy is in and tell him he isn’t interested in working on this with Cassidy, that Jimmy should find somebody else for the job. Cassidy calls after him before he can step out of the room. Ashton glances over his shoulder at her, giving her one last chance. She smiles politely, obviously relieved.

“Nothing about Luke, got it. Now, pick your stack, and let’s get down to it, yeah? We’ve got three weeks to throw this thing together. We’re going to need every single second we can. Hell, we’re going to need a miracle.”

“Well, while you search for your miracle, I still have one final condition,” says Ashton. He turns around to face Cassidy, but he does not yet choose his stack to begin working. He isn’t done bargaining, and this one last thing is probably the most important of them all. “I still keep my regular lunch hour, which I will spend with Luke.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re in the wrong department, Ashton. Jimmy should transfer you to, like, PR or legal or something,” says Cassidy, but it is in jest. She laughs, shaking her head. “All right. That sounds good to me. Is there anything else you would like to demand?”

Ashton hesitates, pretending to rack his brain. It is all for show, and he is certain it will get a good laugh from Cassidy, who is chewing on her bottom lip right now in anticipation. Ashton can’t hold it very long. He grins.

“Nah, that’ll be all.”

Sure enough, Cassidy laughs. Ashton joins in immediately. His chest feels much lighter than it has in a long time around her. For the first time since he started working at this company, he doesn’t feel like so much of an outsider as he had grown to think he was. He likes it. Against all odds, he likes Cassidy, too. She is almost like a friend. Ashton doesn’t have too many of those.

With the affairs sorted between them for now, they set to work together. Ashton chooses the stack of files that is closest to the door so that he doesn’t have to walk all the way around the table. It saves Cassidy the hassle, too, since she is already on that side of the room. They sit down across from one another and begin to pilfer through the information.

The chairs in here are much more comfortable than the ones in Ashton’s office. The work itself is monotonous but somewhat interesting. A lot of the numbers go over Ashton’s head at first glance—he isn’t the whiz at this that Luke is—so he moves at a slow, yet consistent, pace through the load. One look across the table tells Ashton that Cassidy isn’t breezing through this, either. It makes him feel a little less self-conscious about the turtle speed he feels like he is going.  

Cassidy doesn’t say much as they work, and neither does Ashton. This isn’t a task that can be done half-assed. If they make a mistake right now at the very beginning, their final product will be nowhere near correct. It would take forever to fix if they don’t do everything right the first time. That isn’t the type of stress Ashton wants to live with for the next three weeks.

The morning passes quickly. When the lunch hour dawns, Ashton leaves his work where it lies. Nobody uses this conference room except for projects like this since the new addition to the building was completed last fall. The new part has a more elaborate conference room that is capable of fitting more people and is equipped with the most current technology, so this particular one has fallen out of favor.

Ashton separates from Cassidy’s company, heading for his office instead of the break room just like he said he would. Cassidy shoots a smile at him over his shoulder. It is a kind gesture, not mocking, but it still brings a blush to Ashton’s cheeks. He rolls his eyes at her as he continues down the hallway.

His face is still flushed by the time he enters his own office where Luke is working diligently at his computer. Ashton doesn’t know why Luke pushes himself so much, because Luke has more than likely already finished everything that he needs to do for the rest of the week. He is about to remind Luke that it is all right to take it easy every once in a while—because Ashton thinks Luke needs to be reminded on a daily basis—but the words die in his throat as he realizes that Luke is on the phone.

“Listen, tell Dad to get off my back. I don’t want that position until I earn it. That’s how you and Ben did it, and that’s how I want to do it, too.”

Luke doesn’t seem to know that Ashton is in the room. To be fair, it is partially Ashton’s fault, because Ashton had clammed up right in the doorway as soon as he saw the phone tucked in between Luke’s shoulder and ear. Ashton isn’t sure if he should interrupt the call by making Luke aware of his presence or if he should duck out for a few minutes and come back when Luke is finished with the call.

“I know it didn’t quite work like that,” says Luke a moment later, after, presumably, the person on the other side of the line—Luke’s brother, Ashton thinks—has had their chance to speak. “Listen, it’s hard enough convincing Cal that I’d be willing to move if he ever got traded. There are a couple of big name teams that have their eyes on him right, and I won’t be the one to stay behind if he goes. Taking that position is a big red flag that I’m settling down here.”

Somewhere in the back of Ashton’s mind, in the tiny place that isn’t enthralled by this hidden glimpse into the dynamics of Luke and Calum’s relationship, Ashton thinks he should stop eavesdropping on every important conversation Luke has. It is a bad habit. An unintentional thing both times, yes, but Ashton should really just bite the bullet now and announce his presence. It is too late to fade out of the room and pretend like he hadn’t heard a word.

He doesn’t make a sound.

“I love him, okay? Not like—” Luke breaks off, and there is a pause on his side of the conversation. His brother must say something in the silence, because when Luke speaks again, his voice takes on a note of self-depreciation. “Yeah. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But, I mean, he’s happy, and that’s all we’ve ever wanted. We’ll figure out that other stuff. We always do.”

Luke sighs. It is a loaded sound. He nods his head along to whatever his brother is saying until it is his turn to speak again. Guilt twists in Ashton’s chest. This isn’t a conversation he is supposed to be privy to. He is such an awful human being and an awful boyfriend. He needs to put a stop to this before Luke say anything else that isn’t meant for Ashton’s ears. Truthfully, Luke has already said entirely too much.

Ashton takes a step farther into the room and purposefully stumbles over the corner of the filing cabinet next to the door. It makes an awful banging sound that echoes in the room. Luke jumps, startled. He whips his head toward Ashton, and it is obvious in the surprised expression on Luke’s face that Luke is oblivious to Ashton’s dirty habit of eavesdropping.

Luke mouths, _Are you okay?_

Ashton grimaces. It is only thirty percent fake, because his pinky toe really does hurt from colliding against the unforgiving metal, even though his shoe had done a little to soften the blow. He nods in response to Luke’s question anyway. He figures he deserves the pain from eavesdropping on Luke’s private conversation.

“I’ve gotta go. It’s lunchtime. Talk to Dad for me, all right?” asks Luke, speaking into the phone receiver. He waits a moment, listening to whatever it is his brother is saying. A bright blush darkens on his cheeks. He glances over at Ashton, who has limped to his desk and sat down. He smiles a crinkly-eyed smile at Ashton, one that Ashton loves so much, and then speaks into the phone again. “One day soon, I promise. Bye.”

He hangs up the phone, dropping it to his desk. He seems to be in much better spirits now than he had been earlier when he had shooed Ashton from their office. It is probably from speaking with his brother. Luke always seems much happier after he talks to his family.

“Was that, um…” but Ashton trails off, because he isn’t sure the appropriate thing to say here. He doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and dampen Luke’s mood again. Beyond that, he doesn’t know how to tell Luke that he heard more than he should have of that conversation.

“Jack, my brother,” says Luke. The crinkly-eyed smile begins to fade, but the echoes of it remain behind in the slight upward tilt of the corner of his lips. “He was on his way to a conference. He always gets bored when he travels, so he calls me.”

“And, you being the wonderful little brother you are, indulge him.”

“Always,” laughs Luke. He drops his gaze to his lap. “He, uh, wants to meet you—the whole family does. I think it’s a little weird for them, you know? Like, they have known Michael and Calum for ages, but they don’t know you.”

Ashton hears the insecurities in Luke’s voice. He hears the _but you don’t have to meet them_ that Luke doesn’t say. It is a ridiculous fear. Luke’s family are important to him, so, by association, they are important to Ashton, too.

“I’d like to meet them,” says Ashton, because he would. “I’m not going to be scared off.”

“Yeah,” says Luke, softly. “I know.”

He sounds like he would like to say more, but he doesn’t. He reaches for the miniature refrigerator instead, drawing out the packed lunches. He hands Ashton to him and keeps his own. Ashton takes the lunch with a smile, pleased when Luke purposefully brushes their fingers together. It feels like an apology from this morning when Luke had drawn back from Ashton’s kiss.

Ashton wants to kiss him now, but he can’t. He settles for curling his index finger around Luke’s for the fraction of a second they are both holding onto his lunch. It brings the crinkly-eyed smile back to Luke’s lips. Ashton’s heart skips an entire beat in his chest.

Enthralled by Luke as he always is, Ashton watches Luke unpack his lunch. It is probably creepy, admittedly, but Ashton hasn’t gotten to admire Luke all morning, so he lets himself have these few precious moments. When Luke unwraps the aluminum foil from his sandwich, Ashton is glad of his selfishness as he watches happiness—pure, unadulterated happiness—blossom onto Luke’s face.

“Cal wrote me a note,” says Luke, grinning proudly from ear-to-ear. It makes the corners of his eyes crinkle once more.

He speaks with a soft voice like he can hardly believe it, but he holds up the tiny scrap of yellow paper for Ashton to see for himself. Ashton thinks, if he looks close enough, he spies tears welling up in Luke’s eyes. Ashton could hardly blame him for getting all teary-eyed. Usually, handwritten notes are Michael’s forte.

But when Ashton finally lowers his gaze to the note clutched between Luke’s first finger and thumb, the proof is right there in Calum’s chicken-scratch handwriting, which reads:

_You were my second chance that I ~~didn’t~~ don’t deserve. I love you. _

_P.S. I’m sorry._


	13. Chapter 13

Michael is waiting alone at Ashton’s apartment when Ashton and Luke arrive. He is sitting in the front seat of Calum’s old car, bopping his head to the music on the radio. The windows are rolled up, because the air is chilly, but he doesn’t have the heater running. His borrowed blue sweater is probably enough to keep him warm, which is more than likely only half of the reason Michael had nicked it from Calum’s closet. Michael likes wearing Calum’s clothes. He wears them even more than he wears Luke’s, though that might have something more to do with the fact that Michael’s shoulders are too broad for most of Luke’s favorite shirts.

Luke cuts the engine to Michael’s car and climbs out. Ashton follows him, circling around the car once he is out to join Luke, and he watches as Luke glances wildly around, as if expecting Calum to be standing on Ashton’s doorstep. Calum isn’t there, and he isn’t anywhere else, either. When Luke realizes this, he hunches in on himself.

Ashton’s heart lurches in his chest. He reaches out to lay his hand on Luke’s shoulder, but Luke steps away from him the moment his fingers graze Luke’s jacket. Ashton flinches, abruptly pulling back his arm. Luke’s rejection burns beneath Ashton’s skin. Ashton tries to push away the feeling, because he knows that Luke didn’t mean anything by it.

“Cal got held up at work,” says Michael, climbing out of his car.

Luke frowns. He doesn’t look terribly surprised by the news. He almost looks like he had expected as much, as if this is something that has happened countless of times in the past and Luke has gotten his hopes up for nothing time and time again.

“Of course,” says Luke, his voice flat. “So it’s just going to be me and you and Ash to pack up this place?”

Michael shakes his head.

“Cal is sending a few of his teammates over to do all of the heavy-lifting. Mitchy and Brian and a couple of others stayed late all last week. It’s Cal’s turn this week.”

“He couldn’t have mentioned that this morning?” asks Luke.

Michael bites his lips together, looking all sorts of torn up over how short Luke is with Calum. It is the same way he looked at Calum this morning after Luke had stormed out during breakfast. Ashton understands Michael’s predicament. Ashton himself doesn’t like Luke and Calum being at odds with one another, either.

“I don’t think he knew this morning,” says Michael, softly.

Luke’s disappointment deflates upon hearing the foreign note of apprehension in Michael’s voice. Ashton reaches out to Luke again, and, this time, Luke lets Ashton lay his hand on Luke’s shoulder. It isn’t enough for Ashton, and it isn’t enough for Luke, either. Ashton drags Luke to him, wrapping his arms around Luke and holding Luke close. Luke melts in Ashton’s arms. He shudders through his next breath.

“’M sorry, Mike,” says Luke. “I know you don’t like it when Cal and I fight. It puts you in a bad place, and I don’t ever want to do that to you.”

His face is buried in Ashton’s next, so his words come out slurred together, but by the way that Michael winces, it is obvious Michael hears them well enough. Michael looks so lonely standing by himself watching Luke fall apart in Ashton’s arms. He looks helpless in all of the ways that he never does when it comes to Calum. Ashton’s heart skips a beat in his chest as he takes in the absolute, complete devastation shining in Michael’s eyes.

“He loves you, Luke,” says Michael. The conviction in his voice is nearly palpable in the space between them. “He does. He’s just—I dunno. Scared, I think.”

Luke snorts, but it isn’t an unkind sound. It is more of disbelief. He turns around in Ashton’s arms so that he can meet Michael’s eyes.

“Of what? Cal’s got everything he could possible want. Hell would freeze over ten times before he lost that. You and I both know it.”

Michael draws in a stuttering breath. He shakes his head slowly, his wide eyes never leaving Luke’s. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it in the next instance as if the words he had wanted to utter are nothing compared to the thoughts raging through his mind. A long moment passes between them all before Michael finally settles on what he wants to say.

“He’s got a lot more to lose now, and I think he’s only beginning to realize that, and it’s freaking him the fuck out.”

Luke stiffens in Ashton’s arms.

“But you both said that—”

“I know what we said, and so does Calum,” interrupts Michael, gently. “It’s just—he’s _trying_. He’s trying so hard, and I think he’s afraid it isn’t enough—that he isn’t enough.”

Luke looks away from Michael then, averting his gaze to the blacktop beneath his feet. He is still stiff as a board in Ashton’s arms. Ashton feels as though he is eavesdropping on a conversation he isn’t privy to, even though both Luke and Michael know that he’s there with them. He thinks that maybe he should say something in the stifled silence between Luke and Michael, but he doesn’t know what that something should be.

“He is enough,” says Luke. “I mean, he has never been the problem. I thought he knew that.”

Michael sighs, long and drawn out like there are a million things he wants to say right now but none of them measure up to what needs to be said. He stares at Luke for another long moment, and he chews on his bottom lip. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, but he looks like he would rather wrap his arms around Luke instead.

“I think he’s scared,” Michael repeats, and it sounds just as much like an excuse as it did the first time. Michael frowns as he says it, like he wishes he knew how to fix the brokenness between Luke and Calum. In the next second, Michael’s gaze flickers to Ashton, and he forces a smile that wobbles on his lips. “Let’s get this place packed up, all right? Everything will be better once we’re all under the same roof.”

Ashton expects Luke to have more to say about Calum’s absence, but he doesn’t. Luke merely nods his head in acquiescence to Michael’s request and gently pushes himself out of Ashton’s arms. Ashton lets him go, because Luke seems like he needs at least one thing going for him now, and if he wants his freedom, Ashton will give it to him.

“He really is sorry he isn’t here to help,” says Michael, quietly to Ashton. He is staring after Luke, and the frown is back on his face. “He hates disappointing Luke, and, after this morning, Cal’s trying his best to fix things with him. This is just—I dunno—a stroke of the worst luck possible, apparently.”

“Apparently,” parrots Ashton, distractedly. He glances after Luke, as well. “Cal put a note in his lunch, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Luke so happy when he read it.”

“He used to be that happy all of the time,” says Michael, quiet like it is a confession, and the words slice like knives across Ashton’s heart. “It’s been nice to see him happy again over these past few weeks. It feels like we’re heading in the right direction, and that’s good.”

Ashton’s heart lurches in his chest. He whips his head around to face Michael, who is, now, looking straight at him. Their eyes meet, hazel to green, and Ashton lets his question fall forbiddingly inquisitive from his lips.

“Why wasn’t Luke happy? I thought everything was perfect with the three of you. I know that Luke and Calum don’t always see eye-to-eye, but I figured that was just the two of them butting heads for being too much alike.”

Michael smiles weakly. It doesn’t meet his eyes, but he holds Ashton’s gaze. He shoves his hands back deep into the pockets of his jeans.

“Cal and I have been officially together for, like, nine years, but we’ve been best friends forever, and we’ve been dating Luke for five years. However you calculate it, that’s a long time to know somebody. It’s a long time to—uh, grow together. It’s almost naïve to think that we’ve been together as long as we have without facing some problems over the years. That’s just how relationships work, you know.”

But Ashton doesn’t know, because, up until now, he has never been in a relationship to know how they work from the inside. Nobody has ever liked him enough. Or, if they did, they always found a reason to leave him alone. Somewhere deep inside of Ashton’s traitorous mind, buried underneath a thousand self-told white lies, Ashton knows that sooner or later, Michael and Luke and Calum will be handed a reason to leave him alone, too.

“Are you trying to scare me off, Mike?” teases Ashton.

Sometimes it is easier to hide behind humor than to face the truth head-on. This may be one of those times, because Ashton doesn’t think he can stomach all of the ways that Michael, Luke, and Calum almost broke. The thing is if they can break, then Ashton doesn’t know where that leaves his relationship with the three of them.

“Nah, of course not,” says Michael. He laughs, and it comes nearer to being genuine than any smile he has tried thus far. “I’m trying to keep you around, because you make everything all better.”

Ashton smiles.

“I’m glad. The three of you together, you’re all something magical. You’re what everybody wants for themselves.”

“Four,” corrects Michael. “It’s the four of us now. You’re just as much a part of this as we are.”

Ashton smiles even wider. He likes being reminded that he is just as much a part of this relationship as the others. Sometimes, it is hard to come to terms with the fact that he is so lucky as to be able to call Michael and Luke and Calum his own, especially because they all have lived a-whole-nother life before him. Sometimes, he doesn’t understand how he fits in—how they made room for him, too.

“Thanks, Mike,” says Ashton, “and thanks for helping me pack up this place, too.”

“The sooner we’re under the same roof, the better, yeah?” says Michael.

He grins, stepping forward to throw his arm around Ashton’s shoulder. Together, they walk to Ashton’s apartment where Luke is already waiting by the front door. Ashton digs the keys for the place out of his pocket, and he lets them inside. Michael lets go of Ashton so that they can enter the apartment, and he presses a quick kiss to Luke’s cheek as he passes by. Luke ducks his head, smiling, and his earlier mood is obviously improved by Michael’s tiny gesture of love.

Ashton turns Michael and Luke loose in the kitchen with a stack of broken-down boxes Michael had brought from his store. The kitchen is scarcely stocked, as Ashton has never been a big cook, so it won’t take them very long to finish packing up the room, even if they take their time wrapping every single glassware in newspapers to make sure nothing breaks. They will probably move onto the living room in no time. If they work well into the evening, Ashton knows the three of them can at least have this place packed up before they go home to their big bed at the house.

Ashton devotes his efforts to his bedroom instead. He strips his bed first thing, carefully folding the bedding away into one of the boxes. He struggles a little with the fitted sheet. He has never been a proper enough adult to know how to fold one, but, in the end, it, too, joins the other bedding in the cardboard box.

He goes about emptying his dresser next and then the clothes from his closet. He doesn’t own a lot of clothes, not compared to the amount of clothes that Luke or Michael or Calum have in their house, so he only has to use a couple of the boxes. He hasn’t ever had enough spare money, not between the bills and rent and paying for his years-long stupidity, to splurge on his wardrobe, but maybe that will change now that he doesn’t have to cover all of the expenses himself—assuming, of course, that he makes some changes to his banking account to ensure that nobody can drain his funds ever again.

He packs up the knickknacks scattered around his room, the old bagged-up chess set he had won in a school tournament as a kid, and an ancient gaming system that only works about half of the time that he wants it to. It takes him a couple of hours in total to pack up the contents of his bedroom. When he is finished there, he goes to clean out the toiletries from the ensuite bathroom.

“Cal’s teammates are here to do the heavy lifting. They’re carrying out the stuff from the kitchen right now,” says Michael, a little while later. “And there was a man at the door, too.”

He wonders into Ashton’s bedroom and stands in the middle of it, confused. There are stacks of packed boxes, but Ashton is nowhere in sight. Michael makes his way through the max of boxes in the floor toward the ensuite, where, inside, Ashton is cleaning out the sink vanity.

“He said his name was Brandon, and that he needed to give you this envelope,”  says Michael, not missing a beat. “He didn’t want to stick around for me to get you, though. Strange.”

Ashton freezes, his hand tightening around a half-empty bottle of Christmas-themed hand soap. His heart pounds like a drum in his chest. He doesn’t dare look up at Michael, fearful of the envelope in his hand.

“Brandon?” repeats Ashton.

He would give anything for Michael to laugh it off, tell him that he heard wrong, and call out another name. Michael doesn’t. Ashton’s luck doesn’t work that way.

“Yeah. He said you’d know who I was talking about?”

Michael phrases it as a question, even though Ashton knows Brandon had definitely made it a statement. Ashton has never known Brandon to ever be anything less than certain about what belonged to him. He has no reason to believe Brandon might be different today.

“Ash—”

Michael pauses, and for a moment it seems like he is going to let things lie like so much has gone unspoken between them all, but he doesn’t. Ashton wishes he would. He wishes Michael would drop the subject like he has never, ever wished for something in his entire life. The thing about Ashton, though, is that his wishes don’t ever come true. Of course, this one doesn’t either.

“Why did he hand me an envelope containing the exact amount of money that had been withdrawn from your banking account last week?” asks Michael, doggedly, as he shoves the item in question into Ashton’s free hand.

The envelope feels like it weighs a ton, clasped between Ashton’s palm and first three fingers. Ashton doesn’t need to open it up any more than it already is to know that the money inside is the amount Michael says it is. Ashton believes Michael, but, more than that, Ashton knows Brandon.

“How do you know how much was withdrawn from my account?” asks Ashton, purposefully avoiding the core of Michael’s question. Some secrets are better off kept to himself.

“Luke and I finished packing up your kitchen. Your bank statement was on the counter. When a total stranger handed me an unsealed envelope full of cash, I couldn’t help but to be curious,” answers Michael, ever patient. He sounds slightly apologetic for invading Ashton’s privacy, but he doesn’t sound guilty enough to regret his decision to count out the bills in the envelope. Perhaps it is because Michael knows better than to even consider the idea that Ashton would be candid with such information. “What’s going on?”

Ashton shrugs, turning his back to Michael so that he doesn’t accidentally look Michael in the eyes as he skirts around the one topic that he doesn’t ever want to discuss. Not with Michael. Not with somebody who means so, so much to Ashton. Not to somebody who Ashton doesn’t want to lose—and Ashton has never, ever been more afraid to lose anybody in the entire world than he is to lose Michael, Luke, and Calum.

“Who is this Brandon person?” asks Michael.

_A parasite_ , thinks Ashton, but he doesn’t have the guts to say it. The description is true. Brandon knows how to get inside of people and feed off their fears and their insecurities. He thrives off the power of controlling everything around him. Even now, though, out from underneath Brandon’s thumb, Ashton can’t bring himself to speak cruelly of the man who so effortlessly leeched away Ashton’s first shot at being a proper adult.

“Nobody,” is what Ashton says instead.

Michael isn’t happy with Ashton’s answer. He grunts his dissatisfaction as he steps farther into the bathroom, crowding into Ashton’s space. Ashton can’t handle Michael so close—neither physically nor to the awful truth in Ashton’s past.  

“Don’t lie to me,” says Michael. His words are sharp, but his voice is soft. “Don’t shut me out. Please.”

He reaches out to take Ashton’s hand, but Ashton is already holding the envelope. He settles for wrapping his fingers around Ashton’s wrist, his touch gentle and caring in the way that Brandon’s never was. Ashton doesn’t pull away. He shudders at the feet of Michael’s hand around his wrist. Never has Ashton felt Michael’s _love_ as overpoweringly strong as he does right now. He wishes it would swallow him whole.

Ashton closes his eyes, ducking his head. He draws in a ragged breath, and he pushes away all of the bad memories that threaten to overwhelm him—memories that he spent a good year of his life trying to lock up in a tight little box in his mind to never be opened again. They’re scary, those memories, but maybe here with Michael, Ashton can be strong enough to face them again.

“Have you ever trusted the wrong person?”

“Ash—”

But truthfully, it doesn’t matter if Michael has or not, because Ashton has. Ashton has paid for it dearly, too, and he would give everything in the entire world for Michael’s answer to be no. He doesn’t think he can handle it right now if Michael’s answer is yes, so Ashton speaks over Michael’s broken voice.

“Brandon was the wrong person.”

Michael tightens his hand around Ashton’s wrist, startled by the emptiness of Ashton’s tone. He opens his mouth to respond but closes it in the next second, changing his mind on whatever it is he wants to say. He is quiet for a long moment.

“What d’you mean?” asks Michael, finally.

Ashton chews on his bottom lip, staring at the way Michael’s thumb presses ever-so-slightly into Ashton’s wrist. It is a grounding touch, a physical reminder that Ashton lives in a world post-Brandon. Ashton hasn’t needed such a reminder since he was three months into therapy when he had needed his sister to walk him to the office, because he still wasn’t brave enough to go by himself.  

“You don’t have to tell me,” says Michael, because it is important that Ashton is reminded of the obvious—that Ashton doesn’t owe anything to anybody if he doesn’t want to give it. “But you do need to tell me if I need to go hunt that bastard down and kill him with my bare hands, ‘cause if he hurt you—if he made you do things you didn’t want to—I swear, I will kill him without a second thought.”

“It wasn’t like that,” says Ashton, hurriedly, glancing up at Michael through his eyelashes, because he still can’t bring himself to look Michael square in the eyes.

“I don’t like the idea of you being hurt,” says Michael, frowning.

“Brandon wasn’t—we weren’t _together_ ,” says Ashton. “He’s straight as an arrow.”

“Then what did he do?”

Ashton snorts. He raises his head to meet Michael’s gaze full-on for the first time. Old anger flares up in his chest. For a moment, he forgets that he is supposed be embarrassed by how _easy_ of a target he was for Brandon.

“He made me reliant on him, and then he isolated me from everyone I loved, and it took me nearly a year to come to terms with the fact that what he did was bad.”

“Ash—”

“Because friends don’t do that to one another! They don’t! Or, at least, they’re not supposed to, but what do I know? Nobody ever took an interest in me before him,” says Ashton. He sighs, feeling sorry for himself, because he is pathetic, and now Michael knows it. “Nobody did after him ‘til Luke, either.”

“Well, then, every single person in your entire life has been an ignorant asshole,” snaps Michael.

He shakes his head with distaste, and he uses his hand on Ashton’s wrist to draw Ashton to him. He lets go of Ashton’s wrist so that he can throws his arms around Ashton’s shoulders in a big, crushing hug. Ashton melts into it.

“I love you, Ashton, and so does Luke and Calum,” says Michael with so much conviction in his voice that Ashton smiles into the crook of Michael’s neck. “I swear, if I ever run across that bastard again, I’ll punch him right in the face. You are worth so much more than being somebody’s puppet.”

Ashton doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t needed to hear these words for almost an entire year. He does now, and somehow Michael knew that he did, and if that isn’t love, Ashton doesn’t know what is.


	14. Chapter 14

Everybody works well into the night. Calum’s teammates kindly carry all of the heavy stuff out of Ashton’s apartment and into the rented moving truck. There are enough helping hands at the apartment to pack all of Ashton’s belongings away in cardboard boxes by eleven o’clock. Calum’s teammates load the last of the boxes into the truck by midnight. What would have taken Ashton days to pack up by himself is completed after several long, grueling hours.

Calum’s teammates park the moving truck in the far side of the driveway about half of an hour later, promising to return the next day to help carry everything inside. Ashton thanks them for their help. They shrug it off as a favor for Calum, because, apparently, anybody who is special enough to capture Calum’s heart deserves to be treated like family. Ashton admires their loyalty. He tells them as much as a taxi cab pulls up on the curb in front of the house, despite Michael’s and Luke’s earlier offers to drive them all home.

After Calum’s teammates leave, there is no reason to linger outside any longer. Ashton follows Luke into the house, smiling to himself as he thinks about how this is his life now—how this house is officially his _home_. He had dropped off his keys in the box outside of the front office of his old apartment complex, so there is no going back, not that Ashton would ever want to be anywhere else in the entire world other than in this house with the three men he loves the most.

The lights are all turned off when they enter the house. Luke doesn’t bother flipping one on, and neither does Michael. They toe off their shoes next to the door. Ashton follows suit. He is tired. They all are, because it has been a long evening. All he wants is to go upstairs to the big bed where maybe, _hopefully_ , Calum is already waiting on them.

Ashton goes about getting ready for bed in the upstairs bathroom, throwing on the t-shirt he had left piled on the counter next to the sink that morning. He leaves his dirty clothes in the hamper. It is nearly full. They will need to do laundry soon. Maybe he will do it tomorrow.

He leaves the bathroom in his boxers and t-shirt. He pads down the hallway to the big bedroom, expecting to be the last one there. Instead, he is the first. The pit of his stomach sinks as he realizes that means Calum isn’t home.

The room is strangely empty with only Ashton in it. Ashton walks over to the bed and sits on the edge of it, facing the doorway. He can’t bring himself to crawl underneath the covers, no matter how exhausted he is. It doesn’t feel right to be the only one in the too large bed.

He isn’t alone for very long. Luke comes stumbling into the room, dead on his feet. He stops in the doorway to stare at Ashton or, maybe, at how the bed dwarfs Ashton all alone on it.

“Mike’s trying to get a hold of Cal,” says Luke. His voice is soft as it drifts across the room to Ashton. The distress in his words is plain to hear. “Dunno what’s gotten into Calum.”

Ashton doesn’t either. He entertains, not for the first time, that he doesn’t know a lot about Calum. He doesn’t know a lot about any of them, really. He knows the important things, the things that matter. He knows that he loves them more than he has ever loved anybody in his entire life. He knows that they care for him, too. He knows that Michael is clingy early in the mornings and any time somebody is about to leave, no matter for how long. He knows that, when they’re all together, Calum is often quiet and withdrawn, one arm wrapped around Michael like Michael is the only thing anchoring Calum in the moment. Ashton knows that sometimes Luke hunches in on himself and runs away when he is scared.

That is what Luke is doing now. His shoulders are caved in, his arms folded across his chest and his fingers digging into his ribs. It must hurt, the pressure he is exerting on his skin, but he doesn’t let up. If anything, he folds in on himself more and more by the passing second. It is an almost unnoticeable thing. If it weren’t for how in tune to Luke Ashton has become over the months of knowing him and then dating him, Ashton might miss it. He doesn’t.

“Maybe he just got held up at work,” says Ashton, but even he doesn’t believe his empty excuse.

“It’s half-past one in the morning,” says Luke. He sounds for all of the world like he wishes Ashton’s simple reason could be true, yet he knows better. He has spent the last few years loving Calum. He knows Calum better than Ashton does. “The last time he was out this late for work—”

Luke stops suddenly. He nearly chokes on his own tongue in an attempt to bite down on the words threatening to fall from his lips. Ashton’s heart lurches in his chest, because Luke is hiding something, and Luke never hides anything from Ashton.

“What?” prompts Ashton.

Usually, he wouldn’t push. Luke can have his secrets. It is hypocritical of Ashton, who has an entire history of secrets he doesn’t want to tell, to expect Luke be candid about all of his secrets. The hour of the night is late, and Ashton is tired, and Calum said that he would help pack up Ashton’s apartment, but he didn’t. Ashton can’t stop himself from pursuing the forbidden subject.

“What happened last time?”

Luke frowns. He looks ages older with the weight of the secret behind his eyes. He shakes his head, though, playing it off like whatever it is isn’t important and Ashton shouldn’t worry about it. A lead weight settles in the pit of Ashton’s stomach.

“I’m just being paranoid,” says Luke. “I’m sure Calum lost track of time.”

Yeah, maybe Calum did, but that doesn’t change what happened last time and why whatever it was that happened was bad enough that Luke fears it again. Luke doesn’t seem inclined to talk about it. Ashton wants to ask again, but he isn’t brave enough, not with the way fear shadows Luke’s face. It is the type of fear that makes Ashton’s stomach churn. It is the type of fear that makes Ashton want to protect Luke from the world with his own body as a shield. It is the type of fear that makes Ashton regret pushing the issue in the first place.

This is the type of fear one wears on the eve of the end of the world. It should have no place inside of Luke, but, somehow, it does, and this terrifies Ashton. Luke isn’t Michael. He isn’t haunted by nightmares and scarred by monsters. Luke isn’t scared of anything—or so Ashton has always thought.

Ashton doesn’t push any farther. He feels like a jackass for pushing as far as he did, and all he wants now is to gather Luke up in his arms and make that fear go away. He pushes away his own curiosity and stands up from the bed. Luke is more important.

It is typically four steps to the doorway where Luke is standing. Ashton crosses it in two, and Luke melts into his arms. The weight of the world must be on Luke’s shoulders, because he falls heavier into Ashton’s chest than he has in the entire time Ashton has been lucky enough to date him. This alone shatters Ashton’s heart.

Ashton tightens his arms around Luke. He may not understand what happened last time between Luke and Calum that could bring such fear to Luke’s eyes, but he doesn’t have to know anything about it to wish he could shoulder the burden instead of Luke, who is precious and good and doesn’t deserve to fear anything in his relationship with the other three.

“Why don’t we cuddle ‘til Cal gets home, and then he can explain what it was that made him lose track of time,” suggests Ashton. “I’m sure he wishes he were here right now than wherever he is.”

Luke is pliant underneath Ashton’s direction. Together, the two of them cross the room to the bed, and Ashton tucks Luke underneath the covers. He crawls in beside of Luke, taking the spot on the edge of the bed that Luke himself typically sleeps in. Luke needs the middle spot tonight. When Michael and Calum finally join them, Luke will be safe and loved in the middle of them all.

“He was supposed to help you pack up your apartment,” mutters Luke a few minutes later. The lights are out. His head is resting against Ashton’s shoulders, and Ashton’s arms are wrapped so tightly around him that there is hardly space to breathe between them. “Are you mad at him for that?”

Ashton shrugs as much as he can with Luke laying partially on top of him. The truth is that Ashton really had been holding Calum to his promise to help. When Ashton had gotten to his old apartment and found only Michael waiting on him, it had stung like rejection. Disappointment had simmered low in his belly like he thought could never happened when it came to Calum, Michael, or Luke.

“Technically, he did help, I guess,” says Ashton. It isn’t an answer to Luke’s question, because he doesn’t want to lie to Luke and tell Luke that it didn’t bother him that Calum had fallen back on his promise. Also, though, he doesn’t want to tell Luke the truth that it had hurt, just a little. Luke seems so distant with Calum right now that Ashton doesn’t want to add to that. “He sent his teammates over to do all of the heavy lifting since he couldn’t be there. I suppose, that’s better than he needed to do.”

“But it’s not,” says Luke. “Calum was supposed to help you today.”

Ashton pauses.

“Why does this bother you so much?”

But Ashton should have known better than to expect a clear response. Luke freezes against him, going entirely rigid. He shakes his head. Ashton sighs, resigning himself to another half-told secret, but, in the end, Luke speaks.

“I don’t want you to get hurt and fall out of love with us.”

Ashton sucks in a sudden breath, his heart beat accelerating in his chest.

“That’s—that’s _impossible_ ,” breathes Ashton, too stunned by Luke’s fear to speak any louder. “There’s nothing any of you could do to make me not love you anymore.”

Luke grabs a fistful of Ashton’s shirt. He clings to Ashton’s chest like his life depends on it. Fear still holds his body hostage. Unease dances underneath Ashton’s skin. Ashton’s words aren’t enough to reassure Luke, but they should be, because Ashton has never meant anything more in his entire life. He doesn’t know how to make Luke believe him.

“I hope you’re right,” murmurs Luke. It is muffled into Ashton’s chest, spoken so low that Ashton is pretty sure he isn’t meant to hear it. “I hope to God you’re fucking right.”

Ashton, unlike Luke, doesn’t have to hope. He knows. He wishes that Luke did, too, but the thing about fear is that it isn’t an easy foe. It gets inside of a person, and it jumbles things up in there, and it refuses to let go.

* * * * *

Eventually, Michael joins them. It must be at least an hour later. He is already dressed in his typical pajamas, a pair of boxers and somebody’s t-shirt. Tonight, the shirt is Calum’s. Ashton gets a brief glimpse of it in the split second before Michael flips off the light in the hallway and envelops the room in complete darkness.

“Calum messaged me. He isn’t coming home tonight,” says Michael. His voice is rough. Perhaps with exhaustion. Perhaps with disappointment. Ashton can’t tell. The room is dark, and Michael barely speaks loud enough to be heard all the way across the room, like it is some secret he isn’t supposed to tell. “He said he’d explain in the morning and that he is sorry he isn’t here.”

Michael stumbles his way to the bed like the path from the door isn’t familiar to him, but that is impossible. This is the room Michael has slept in every night with his lovers for longer than Ashton himself has been one of Michael’s lovers. It is more likely that Michael is just clumsy tonight, thrown off kilter by Calum’s absence.

Ashton understands the sentiment. When Michael crawls underneath the covers and snuggles up close to Luke, the space where Calum should take up is unusually empty. The bed feels a million times bigger—and not in a good way. Ashton misses the intimacy of all four of them sleeping so close to one another they can hardly breathe. Tonight, they have all of the room in the world, it feels like, to spread out, but they sleep closer than ever.

Despite Calum’s absence and the odd roominess of the bed, Ashton sleeps like the dead. He is so tired from packing up his entire apartment in one evening that he hardly feels like he has even slept before he is awake again—like he has merely blinked his eyes rather than slept four-hours straight.

The alarm clock on the bedside table, however, belies the length of time Ashton spent sleeping. It is too early in the morning to be awake. It is still dark outside. The sun hasn’t even thought of peeking over the horizon yet. At first, Ashton doesn’t understand what woke him, but, as his brain begins to take in his surroundings, the reason becomes obvious.

“’S alright, Mike,” murmurs Luke.

Ashton opens his eyes more to try to understand what is going on. It is dark in the room, but he can just make out the silhouette of Michael and Luke tangled together on the other edge of the mattress, ages away from Ashton. If Ashton were to reach out right now, his fingers wouldn’t even skim either of them.

“Want Cal,” whispers Michael. Either he is trying to be considerate of Ashton still asleep next to them or he isn’t able to speak any louder. Ashton isn’t sure, but he would place money on the latter. The bed shakes as, presumably, Michael trembles in fear. He must have had another nightmare. “Need Cal.”

“Cal’s not answering his phone,” says Luke. He tosses his phone to the bedside table where the illuminated screen dims then darkens into nothing. “I’ve tried him five times, and it’s going straight to voicemail. Let me in. Let me take care of you. I swear to you that I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Michael sobs. It sounds like it is wrenched from his throat, and Ashton’s heart leaps up to his own throat. Ashton is so, so tired, but he is awake enough to have a half-aborted thought that he should see what he can do to help Michael. Luke isn’t having much luck.

“Why isn’t he here? I need him!”

“I know you do,” says Luke. His voice sounds as broken as Michael’s whisper does—or perhaps a little more. He sounds helpless in a way that Ashton has never before attributed to him. “But you’ve got me, and I swear I love you just as much as he does. I always have.”

Michael continues to tremble in Luke’s arms, sobbing occasionally as he gasps for breath. Luke murmurs soothing words of comfort. He tells Michael how much he him. He tells Michael all that he would do to keep him safe. He keeps talking, word after word, until he nearly talks himself hoarse. After a while, his sentences become jumbled, unrelated declarations of love that are so oversaturated with Luke’s dedication to Michael that they have to seep deep into Michael’s skin. Still, Luke talks on.

Ashton, in his half-delirious state somewhere between sleep and awake, thinks he should speak up and offer his own words of comfort. His tongue feels too heavy in his mouth, like if he were to try to speak, he wouldn’t be able to form a single word. It is terrifying, listening to Michael sob in Luke’s arms over his nightmare and over Calum’s absence. Ashton knows that Michael has nightmares often. He knows there are horrors in Michael’s past, and among them is an instance that left him with an ugly scar.

Never, though, has Ashton witnessed what Michael looks like at his most vulnerable. Never has Ashton been brought face-to-face with a terrified Michael and no idea what to do to make him better that isn’t outright tracking Calum down right now and dragging him back to Michael come hell or high water. Never has Ashton felt so helpless as he does right now listening to Luke babble on about his love for Michael.

It is a long, long time before Michael’s sobs subside. Luke swears up and down five hundred different ways he loves Michael and a thousand different ways that he will keep Michael safe. He talks so much that, in the end, he really does make himself hoarse, and then he talks some more.

Gradually, like the calm after a storm, Michael stops trembling in Luke’s arms. He must have exhausted himself out, because the bed moves and Luke grunts. Ashton can just make out the silhouette of Luke and barely that of Michael hidden away in Luke’s arms.

It is quiet then. The moments stretch out endlessly before them. It is silent in the room for so long that Ashton nearly convinces himself that nothing actually happened—that it was all just a dream concocted by his exhausted brain—but the silence is eventually broken.

“’S get you back in bed, Mike,” murmurs Luke. There is a wet sound of a kiss. It must be placed against Michael’s forehead, because otherwise the angle according to their silhouettes is all wrong. “You can sleep ‘tween Ash and me. We’ll keep you safe.”

Michael is easy underneath Luke’s guide. He falls into bed next to Ashton, jostling him. Michael is apologetic about it, patting Ashton on the shoulder because he thinks Ashton is asleep. Ashton doesn’t correct him. He just lets Michael curl up around him, and Luke settles in on the other side.

“I love you, Michael. I love you so much that I can hardly breathe sometimes.”

Michael, for his part, is quiet, but Ashton feels Michael nod his head. Luke has to feel it, too, given how his body is molded around Michael. Ashton thinks that is that. He thinks that, in the morning, he should kiss Michael and Luke just because and let it serve as his apology for being so fucking useless and cowering behind the façade of sleep tonight.

As Ashton lets himself fall back asleep, comforted by Michael’s weight next to him and Luke’s beyond Michael, Ashton discovers he was wrong. That isn’t that.

“’M sorry you had to call Calum,” murmurs Michael. He is speaking to Luke, obviously, but his breath puffs warm against Ashton’s neck. He sounds mostly out of it, like is on the cusp of sleep himself but can’t let himself go completely until he spills his innermost thoughts to the person who desperately deserves to hear them. “’M sorry if I made you feel like you weren’t enough. You are, Luke. You always have been. I don’t think we remind you enough that you are.”

“You let me into your lives,” says Luke, softly. “You let me into your love, and I swear to you, that is enough for me.”

Michael hums. Luke kisses Michael again, evident only by the wet sound of his lips against Michael’s neck. It is a brief affair. Luke is too exhausted for anything else—for anything beyond a soft press of lips to show his love and his arms wrapped so tightly around Michael, brushing against Ashton’s side, that it would probably take the Jaws of Life to pry Luke off him.

For the second time that night, Ashton sleepily thinks that is that, and he lets sleep wash over him once more. The final thing he remembers, though, is Michael speaking one last time.

“You deserve so much more.”


	15. Chapter 15

When Ashton wakes up the next morning, Luke is already gone from the bed. Faintly, in the dead quiet of the house, Ashton can hear the shower running in the hall bathroom, so that probably accounts for his absence. Michael, on the other hand, is curled up around Ashton, his head resting on Ashton’s chest and his fingers digging into the meat of Ashton’s ribs. They kind of hurt, Michael’s fingers, but Ashton thinks of how scared Michael was last night, and if clinging to Ashton like a second skin helps Michael to sleep uninterrupted by nightmares, then Ashton can deal with the pain.

So Ashton lays in a sort of state between being awake and drifting back off to sleep. He curls his arm around Michael’s shoulders, ignoring the tingling sensation in his fingers due to the lack of blood flow. It is a small price to pay for Michael’s comfort. He holds Michael closer to him, and he presses a soft kiss to the top of Michael’s head, getting a mouthful of blond hair for his effort. He doesn’t mind the trouble.

It is peaceful with Michael wrapped around him. Ashton can almost ignore how empty the bed feels with just the two of them in it. Now, with the morning sun washing over the pair of them, waking up in an empty bed isn’t all that unusual—except, typically, it is Luke still curled up next Ashton, and it is Luke who Ashton leaves to wake up alone.

Today, it would be Michael, but Ashton can’t bring himself to let Michael wake up in an empty bed, not after last night.

Ashton doesn’t have to wait forever for Michael to wake up, though. He no sooner than kisses the top of the Michael’s head than Michael himself groans sleepily and blinks open his eyes. Michael stiffens in Ashton’s hold, as if forgetting for a minute where he is, but forces himself to relax in the next second.

“’S Luke?” mumbles Michael, still sleepy. He burrows into Ashton’s chest, like, if he tries hard enough, he can fall right back asleep, safe and protected in Ashton’s arms.

Ashton smiles down at him, even though Michael can’t see it. Michael is beautiful in the mornings, all soft and cuddly and warm. He is even more beautiful in Ashton’s arms. Ashton has the passing regret that this is the first time he has woken up alone in bed with Michael—that this is probably the first time he has gotten to cuddle Michael in their bed, too.

“In the shower, I think,” says Ashton. Truthfully, it is only a guess. For all he knows, it could be Calum in the hall shower, but he doubts it. If Calum were home, he would be right here with Michael. “Did you have a good night’s rest?”

Ashton knows Michael didn’t, but he doesn’t know how to admit to Michael that he had been so pitifully useless last night when Michael had his nightmare. It isn’t his proudest moment, listening as Michael fell apart in Luke’s arms and demanded Calum. Ashton isn’t quite sure how to admit to one of the people he loves the most in the world that he has failed them. Guilt sets heavy in his heart.

“Had a nightmare,” admits Michael, with a shrug. “Good thing you sleep like a rock. It woke Luke up, though.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Ashton, and he is. He was sorry to hear Michael have a nightmare last night, and he is sorry that Michael has to admit it happened this morning. He wishes that he could reach inside of Michael’s mind and take out all of the bad things that are causing him stress so that Michael will never, ever be bothered by bad dreams again. He can’t, though. He apparently can’t help Michael in the moment, either, so he resolves to find something he can do for Michael.

“’S okay,” says Michael, still drowsy. “Luke took care of me. He’s good like that.”

“Yeah, he is,” agrees Ashton, smiling.

He glances at the alarm clock on the bedside table. He and Michael should have gotten up twenty minutes ago, but he doesn’t want to leave this bed for anything in the world. He certainly doesn’t want to let go of Michael, who is still clinging to Ashton like he is afraid Ashton might disappear on him and he’ll be left all alone with the demons in his head if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

The sound of the shower down the hall cuts off, and Ashton has an idea.

“We should probably get up, or we will never will,” says Ashton, and Michael groans, snuggling even farther into Ashton’s chest. Ashton smiles at him again. A wave of unadulterated _love_ washes over him. He wants to kiss Michael so badly right now, but it will have to wait. Maybe he’ll steal one in a few minutes, if Michael is up for Ashton’s suggestion. “Wanna shower together?”

Michael freezes in Ashton’s arms. Ashton’s heart plummets. He immediately regrets asking in the first place. Apparently, it is a bad idea. He rushes to apologize and take back his offer. He doesn’t ever want to put Michael in an uncomfortable spot like he just has.

“Sorry, I know that’s something you and Cal do together. I thought some normality might make you feel a little more at ease this morning, but I didn’t mean to overstep my place. It’s just that—”

Michael looks up at Ashton through wide eyes that are brimming full of adoration that it makes Ashton’s heart skip a beat in his chest. Michael plants a soft, sleepy kiss on Ashton’s lips to shut him up. Ashton is pliant under Michael. He tries to feed as much of his apology into the kiss as he can, but Michael breaks it off almost as soon as it starts. He pulls away from Ashton with a smile on his face.

“Yes, I want to shower with you, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about with ‘your place’ business, but you should know that you can’t possibly overstep anything in this relationship—we’re all equals,” says Michael. He pauses for a second, dropping his gaze to Ashton’s chest like he can’t possibly look Ashton in the eyes any longer. “I don’t like people looking at my stomach, and I almost forgot you already knew about my scar. That’s why I hesitated.”

Michael is so vulnerable in Ashton’s arms, but Ashton holds him tight and tries to make Michael feel as safe and protected as he can. He presses a soft kiss to Michael’s forehead. Michael is precious. Ashton doesn’t understand how the world could have forgotten that even for a second or how it could be so cruel as to haunt him with such an awful past.

“You’re beautiful, Michael,” declares Ashton. “You’re the most beautiful person I know, aside from Calum and Luke, and—don’t tell them—but you might even have a leg up on them.”

Michael laughs. It is a wet affair, but it sounds heavenly to Ashton’s ears. Ashton kisses Michael’s forehead again, smiling when he pulls away. He likes Michael’s laugh. He likes it when Michael is happy. He likes it best when Michael is happy and laughing in his arms.

 * * * * *

Showering with Michael is very mechanical. Ashton isn’t super comfortable being naked in front of another person, no matter that he had been the one to suggest the shower in the first place. He doesn’t like the look of his body in the mirror. He doesn’t really like the idea of Michael having to see his naked body, either, but the reality of it isn’t nearly as damning as Ashton believed it would be.

The shower is steamy. The water is hot, and it clings to Michael’s naked skin as it cascades down his body in rivets. Michael uses his own soap to wash Ashton’s back then the rest of Ashton, too. His hands are slippery against Ashton’s naked skin. They rub across his body like a gentle caress.

Ashton, in turn, washes Michael’s hair. It is a kind gesture in the beginning, but Michael instantly melts right underneath Ashton’s ministrations that Ashton draws it out as long as he can. Michael smiles so prettily underneath the spray of water from the showerhead. Ashton wants to kiss him, and Michael must have the same idea, because Michael grabs Ashton by the back of the neck and draws Ashton to him. Their lips meet underneath the cascading water.

Ashton has never showered with another person before, but if all shared showers are like this, he might make this a daily occurrence. 

Between them, Ashton grows hard, so does Michael. It is their bodies’ natural reactions to the sexual tension growing between them. It isn’t purposeful. Ashton doesn’t want to be aroused now, not when it is only him and Michael here in the shower and Luke is somewhere is the house and Calum is somewhere else. It feels all wrong.

Michael’s lips are wet against Ashton’s. They taste faintly of soap, but Ashton is sure he tastes no better himself. Michael’s hands slide down Ashton’s wet skin, moving in line with the water running down Ashton’s body, until they rest of Ashton’s hips. He draws Ashton nearer to him, their cocks brushing together.

It is wonderful friction. Ashton moans into Michael’s mouth. For a long span of seconds, Ashton loses himself to the sensual feel of Michael hard against him. It is everything of Ashton’s wettest dreams, and he wants nothing more than to see where this will lead—but a tiny voice in the back of his mind yells _STOP!,_ and Ashton freezes against Michael. He breaks the kiss, choking on the humid air of the shower in the next breath.

“Mike,” he murmurs, barely loud enough to be heard above the rush of the water spitting from the showerhead. “Mike, we can’t.”

But Michael doesn’t listen to him. Truthfully, a part of Ashton loves that Michael doesn’t listen, because a large part of Ashton doesn’t want to stop, either. The problem is that Luke and Calum aren’t here. As much as Ashton wants to get off with Michael right now, he can’t help but to feel as if he is _cheating_ on them with Michael. They should be here, at least for the first time. Ashton should get off with all of them before he pairs off. It is only fair.

Michael grinds against Ashton, who draws in a shuddering breath. Ashton lets his face fall into the crook of Michael’s neck, his forehead resting against Michael’s shoulder. His body feels like it is on fire. He can feel the beginnings of an orgasm tug in the pit of his belly already from this short amount of time. It would be so, so easy to let Michael keep grinding against him until their passions overcome them.

Ashton chooses the laborious path instead. He wraps his hands around each of Michael’s wrists and uses them as leverage to step away, creating enough distance between them for water to separate them. Ashton’s heart beats like a kick drum in his chest. He is terrified it might even break out of the confines of his ribs with all of its thundering. He trembles with arousal that is still taut between his legs.

“We can’t,” he repeats, staring Michael straight in the eyes, though a curtain of water is between them. “I want—I want you, Michael. I _do_ , but I want Luke, too—and Calum. I want all of you. It—it doesn’t feel fair.”

Michael’s expression falls, his lips twisting into an immediate frown that makes the pit drop out of Ashton’s stomach. Ashton’s heart skips a beat in his chest. Michael wrenches his wrists from Ashton’s hold, and Ashton, numb, lets him go without putting up a fight.

“Fair,” repeats Michael.

His voice is dull, but the word falls sharp against Ashton’s ears. They land like a knife in Ashton’s heart. Ashton draws in a sudden, gasping breath. The air is almost too heavy to breathe.

“Fair,” parrots Ashton, his voice almost as thin as his resolve. He wants Michael back in his arms. Michael belongs there, just as Ashton belongs in Michael’s arms, but there is something wrong about it being only the two of them. “I don’t like leaving Luke out—or Calum, either.”

Michael sighs, looking away from Ashton. The water of the shower is still hot, but a chill enters the air that makes Ashton shiver. His earlier arousal is gone, extinguished by the palpable distance between Michael and him. It is the last thing on Ashton’s mind. He reaches out to Michael, but Michael takes a step back.

“Mike, I—”

“No,” says Michael, shaking his head for good measure. He shoots Ashton a smile that falls dead on his lips. His eyes are wide, and Ashton can’t tell if they’re watering or if it is the steam in the shower that is making them look all glassy. “No, you’re right. It isn’t fair to _Luke_.”

Ashton cringes at the way Luke’s name falls from Michael’s lips like a curse. It sounds all wrong tumbling in such a manner off the tip of Michael’s tongue. Ashton is stunned to silence. His heart has taken up residence at the top of his throat. He watches as Michael shuts off the shower then throws open the glass door. A gust of cool air rushes into the shower stall bringing goosebumps to Ashton’s wet, naked skin. Michael reaches for his towel in the next movement, wrapping it around his waist without bothering to properly dry off first. He can’t bring himself to even look at Ashton again before he flees the bathroom like the place is on fire.

Something heavy settles in the pit of Ashton’s stomach, like a heavy weight of anxiety, in Michael’s wake. He is left naked and wet and cold to stare after Michael. He can’t decide if he wishes he would have kept his mouth shut and gotten off with Michael or if he still harbors the same wrongness about intimacy with Michael alone. As much as it runs all over Ashton in the worst of ways to entertain the idea of loving Michael but not the others, it isn’t much easier to watch Michael run away.

* * * * *

It takes a while, but Ashton finally shakes himself out of his stupor and pushes aside the knot of anxiety rolling around in his stomach long enough to be a proper adult and get ready to face the day. Like it or not, he has a full day of work ahead of him. He would much rather spend the entire day making it up to Michael, because Ashton may stand by his decision not to have a quickie with Michael in the shower, he still doesn’t like Michael being upset with him. Unfortunately, the responsibilities of adulthood takes precedence for now.

Downstairs, breakfast is waiting on the table with three plates set. Luke is pouring a third glass of orange juice next to the refrigerator, but he offers a good morning over his shoulder to Ashton. He fills the glass nearly to the brim then returns the juice to the fridge. He carries two of the three glasses to the table where he places them at different seats. Ashton carries the third to the spot that he typically sits in and places it next to the empty plate there.

“Smells delicious,” he says to Luke. “I didn’t know you were much of a cook.”

Luke preens at the compliment, but he ducks his head to hide his smile. He busies himself with placing the two glasses of juice at his and Michael’s plates. Ashton feels a rush of pride wash over him for eliciting such a response from Luke. He may have messed up with Michael a few minutes ago, but, at the very least, he managed to brighten Luke’s morning, and that makes Ashton feel much better than he has since Michael stormed out of the bathroom.

“I’ve always loved cooking. It’s one of the things that Calum and I first bonded over,” says Luke, quietly. “There just isn’t any need for me to cook when Calum handles it all.”

Luke’s shoulders are a tense line that Ashton doesn’t understand. Maybe it is the mention of Calum and the inherent reminder that Calum didn’t come home last night. Or maybe Luke is thinking about Michael a terrified, trembling mess begging for Calum in Luke’s arms only a few hours ago.

Or maybe it isn’t even about Calum at all. Ashton doesn’t know. Luke is not forthcoming with an explanation, and Ashton thinks there has been too much heartache in this house over the past twelve hours for him to even consider dredging up something that makes Luke so sad.

“Well, if this tastes as good as it smells—which I’m sure it will—we’ll definitely have to have you cook more for us,” says Ashton, smiling at Luke, because he thinks that maybe Luke needs as much positivity this morning as Ashton can possibly give him. “You’ll spoil us all with cooking like this.”

Luke blushes to his ears, like the compliment is brand new to him, but Ashton is certain that can’t be the case. Surely, Michael and Calum have told Luke how talented he is. Ashton is only repeating what Luke must have been told a thousand times. Maybe there is something special about hearing it for the first time from somebody new.  

“You haven’t even tasted it yet,” says Luke.

“Don’t need to,” says Ashton, with a shrug. “It’s going to be the best breakfast I’ve ever eaten. I can already tell.”

Luke laughs, rolling his eyes at Ashton with so much fondness there isn’t room for the faux annoyance he meant to convey. Ashton grins at him but reaches for the nearest dish to load food onto his plate so that he can insist Luke’s cooking is delicious. He will compliment Luke until the blush leaves Luke’s pretty cheeks and Luke believes him, and he will continue even then—anything to make Luke smile like the happiest man in the entire world.

Michael comes down the stairs, his hair still damp from the shower. He is dressed in an oversized sweater that belongs to Calum and a pair of black skinny jeans. His hands are curled in fists around the excess fabric of the sweater. He takes one step into the kitchen and stops, his eyes glued to the breakfast laid out on the table.

“You didn’t have to make breakfast,” he says. Slowly, he looks up to meet Luke’s eyes. Something unreadable twinkles in his own. “You’ve already done so much.”

Luke’s face falls, as if Michael’s opinion means the world to him. He recovers in the next second. He shrugs like what he has done is nothing when, in reality, it is everything. Ashton holds his breath, the ball of anxiety returning to his stomach with a vengeance. He looks between Michael and Luke, noting that Michael has yet to acknowledge his presence. Somewhere in the back of Ashton’s mind, that hurts.  

“I forgot how much you like taking care of us,” says Michael. His tone is full of remorse, and it reminds Ashton of how Michael had sounded last night when he had professed his apology to Luke for demanding Calum. “I like that you take care of us.”

Luke smiles once more. His face lights up with it, happy as he is with Michael’s approval after all. He motions for Michael to sit down, but Michael crosses the kitchen to Luke instead. He places his hand on Luke’s face, cupping it, and leans in for a kiss that is so gentle and full of love that it threatens to stop time itself. Luke melts into it, falling into Michael’s arms, and Michael holds him steady.

It is the most intimate kiss Ashton has ever witnessed. It is so intimate that Ashton almost looks away, but he can’t take his eyes off Michael and Luke before him. Michael holds Luke like Ashton has never seen Michael hold anyone before—like Luke is precious and like he fears that Luke might disappear right before his very eyes if Luke isn’t held just right. Luke eats it up like a starving man.

When they break apart, Michael leans back in to press a follow up kiss to Luke’s forehead. He mutters a quiet _I love you_ right there, his lips brushing against Luke’s skin as if instilling the words themselves into Luke’s soul where they will be safe and remembered. Luke shudders in Michael’s arms.

“I don’t know what the hell I would ever do without you,” says Michael, with Luke still in his arms. He speaks so softly that Ashton isn’t sure he is meant to overhear the declaration. “I don’t ever want to find out, either. I swear, I don’t.”

“You won’t,” promises Luke, sinking into Michael’s arms so that he can hide his face in the crook of Michael’s neck and soak up the overwhelming sensation of _love_ and _protection_ that Michael’s hold offers. “’M yours forever, Mike. Always have been. Always will be.”

Michael’s gaze slips over the top of Luke’s head to Ashton, and Ashton has the sudden feeling that he has been caught watching something that he wasn’t allowed to see, but that is crazy. He loves Luke and Michael, and they love him. There are no boundaries in their relationship.

Except the ghost of a frown dances along Michael’s lips, and Ashton thinks there may be boundaries—places he isn’t allowed—in this relationship after all.

Ashton breaks Michael’s gaze, looking down at his plate of food instead. It still smells delicious, but he isn’t so hungry anymore. It is hard to have an appetite with his stomach rolling as violently as it is, like an ocean at the mercy of an angry storm.


	16. Chapter 16

Luke packs them all lunch, just like Calum would if he were here. Michael takes his with a smile and a kiss, eager for Luke’s lips pressed against his. Perhaps Michael is making up for demanding Calum last night when Luke had everything under control. Or perhaps Michael just likes kissing Luke and can never, ever get enough of it. Ashton wants to be optimistic and think it is the latter.

They only have one car, since Calum has the other. Luke offers it to Michael, since Michael’s work hours are flexible. Even if he doesn’t get to the store by the time it opens, he has employees who do that for him. Michael agrees on the set up. Ashton doesn’t care either way, though his opinion isn’t asked.

Michael drops them off at the office. He gives Luke one last kiss. When they part, there is a smile still on his lips. He waves goodbye to Ashton as he settles back in the driver’s seat, ignorant to how Ashton is already leaning toward him for his own kiss goodbye. The brush off stings like rejection across Ashton’s skin. He bites down hard on his lips and returns Michael’s wave. He knows that Michael didn’t mean anything by it. Michael is probably just distracted by Calum’s absence. That has to be it.

_It has to be._

(Except Ashton knows it isn’t that at all. He knows Michael is still upset for being rejected earlier in the shower, and his resolve that he did the right thing crumbles around the edges. He would give almost anything to go back in time and fix things to where he never suggested sharing a shower with Michael in the first place.)

Ashton walks side-by-side with Luke on the way into the building. There is a safe distance between them. Not even the backs of their hands brush when Luke steps aside to hold the door open from Ashton like a true gentleman. Ashton’s skin stings with Michael’s rejection, and it crawls with Luke’s distance. He hates Luke’s rule about public displays of affection at the office, even though he does respect it. He has never hated it more than he does in this moment in time when he needs Luke’s touch in the absence of Michael’s love.

They ride the elevator up to their floor without speaking to one another. Luke hums underneath his breath to the tune of the song that was playing on the radio in the car when they got out. Ashton stares at their reflections in the metal door of the lift. He thinks about how odd everything has been since Calum didn’t come home last night. He thinks about how much he misses Calum, too, and, combined with the rejection stinging across his skin, he wants to curl into a ball right in the middle of the elevator and cry.

He doesn’t. He follows Luke out of the elevator instead.

Cassidy isn’t in her office when Luke and Ashton pass by, though the blinds are open, which means that she is already waiting on Ashton in the conference room. Luke holds the door open for Ashton again, and Ashton steps past him without giving into the urge to brush against him.

Ashton busies himself with putting away his lunch in the miniature refrigerator between their desks as he tries his best to not fall apart. This morning has been so, so horrible that Ashton just wants to crawl underneath the covers of the big bed back home and sleep away the rest of the day. Luke closes the door behind them. He steps up behind Ashton, crowding into his space, to lean down and put his own lunch in the refrigerator next to Ashton’s before Ashton shuts the refrigerator.

It is all a ruse. Once Luke’s lunch is set next to Ashton’s and the refrigerator door is secured, Luke doesn’t move out of Ashton’s space. He wraps his arms around Ashton instead. He presses his lips to Ashton’s neck, right below Ashton’s ear, and dusts a dozen or so kisses right there as if he has been dying to do so since they stepped out of the car.

Just like that, the morning doesn’t seem so awful anymore. Ashton melts back into Luke, his knees feeling wobbly underneath him. His heart threatens to spill out of his mouth, so overwhelmed with the rollercoaster of a morning as he is. Luke is there to hold him and to kiss him and to anchor him, and Ashton feels a wave of unadulterated love wash over him. He clings to Luke’s arms wrapped around his stomach.

“Sorry Mike was acting weird earlier,” murmurs Luke in between his kisses. “’S never the same when Calum’s gone. He didn’t mean anything in the car when he didn’t kiss you goodbye.”

Ashton shudders against the feel of Luke’s lips against his neck. He draws in a shaky breath. He hadn’t thought Luke had noticed anything earlier when they were leaving the car. Michael seemed like he hadn’t, so Ashton had thought Luke hadn’t, either. He thinks about coming clean right then—about telling Luke that Michael had offered to get him off in the shower, but he had said no, and that is why Michael hadn’t kissed him goodbye in the car—but it doesn’t feel right admitting this to Luke, not when Luke had been right downstairs, left out of it all. He goes a different route instead.

 “I heard you two last night,” he confesses. Luke goes rigid behind him, his lips still pressed against Ashton’s neck. “I know Michael had a nightmare. I know that he has nightmares a lot. I never know what to do to help. I felt like such a fool last night, so I didn’t say a word, but you had it all under control, so…”

Luke is quiet for a moment. He rests his chin on Ashton’s shoulder and leans his head against Ashton’s. The silence between them thickens. Ashton can almost literally hear the cogs turning in Luke’s mind as he thinks about how to respond to Ashton’s eavesdropping.

“Calum has always been the one to take care of Michael, and Michael got really scared last night without Calum. It’s like—they’re physically two different people, right? But, sometimes, I swear—”

“They’re really just the same person?” interrupts Ashton, because that has always been how he has thought of Michael and Calum.

Luke chuckles, humorless.

“Yeah, pretty much. It’s easy to love both of them, because they’re inseparable—it’s both or none—and I love them for that, but sometimes it makes things so much worse.”

“Like last night?” asks Ashton.

“Like last night,” repeats Luke, somber. “Michael needed Calum, but all he had was me.”

Ashton shrugs out of Luke’s hold so that he can turn around and face him. Luke doesn’t let go of him completely—he seems reluctant to—and Ashton appreciates Luke so, so much. Luke’s hands are still linked behind Ashton’s back. He makes Ashton feels safe and loved in his arms like he always does.

“All he needed was you,” says Ashton, with a smile. He stares Luke straight in the eyes. It is important that Luke listens to him. It is important that Luke realizes how precious he is in their relationship. It is important that Luke realizes how _important_ he is in their relationship, and if nobody else is here to tell Luke that right now, Ashton will. Ashton always will. “I was there. I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do, but you just—you took care of Michael so perfectly that he didn’t need Calum after all.”

Luke ducks his head, but Ashton spies the smile on his lips.

“Michael always needs Calum,” says Luke, quietly, “but it was nice that he needed me, too.”

Luke steps away from Ashton then, and Ashton knows without Luke having to say that Luke is done violating his own rule of public display of affection in the workplace. Still, though, Ashton can’t help but to chase after Luke’s lips for the kiss that he didn’t get from Michael. Luke indulges him—kisses him with so much love that Ashton’s toes curl in his shoes—for only a few seconds. When they break apart, Luke’s cheeks are pink, and the smile is wide and prominent on his lips.

“Go do your work with Cassidy so you can come back to me, all right?”

Ashton laughs, comforted by the idea of returning to Luke where he belongs. He can’t think of a single reason to delay the inevitable—other than maybe kissing Luke again, but he doesn’t want to try his luck—so he bows to Luke’s order. He heads for the conference room with a smile on his face, already looking forward to coming back to Luke where he belongs.

 * * * * *

Work drags on, no matter how much Ashton has Luke to look forward to. The section of the project he and Cassidy are working on is full of technicalities and numbers that almost go over Ashton’s head. It is slow and meticulous work. He has to double check himself at every single step in the process. When he is wrong, it takes him nearly four times as long to find and correct his mistake. Over the course of the eight-hour work day, Ashton makes two major errors that set him back.

There is still enough cushion time before the deadline that neither Ashton nor Cassidy entertain the idea of pulling overtime. There will come a day when that might be their reality, but, for now, Ashton returns to Luke. He departs from Cassidy at his office with promises to return to the conference room first thing tomorrow. She, as dead beat tired as Ashton, offers to take him out for coffee tomorrow morning for all of the trouble he had today.

Ashton is probably going to need the coffee to get through another strenuous day like this one. He tells her as much before he ducks into his own office. Luke is already waiting on him. He grins happily at Ashton, like he is genuinely glad to see Ashton. When he hands Ashton his jacket, he goes the extra mile to help Ashton into it. He already has both of the computers shut down and everything else put away for the day.

“Mike texted me,” says Luke, as an explanation for his eagerness to leave. “He’s waiting out front for us.”

Ashton can’t think of a single reason to tarry around in the office, even considering the way Michael brushed him off during their goodbyes this morning. He and Luke exit their shared office and walk together down the hall to the elevator. Cassidy waves at Ashton through the window of her office as they pass by. Ashton returns the wave before he follows Luke into the lift.

“I guess you and Cassidy are getting along rather well,” says Luke, conversationally.

“Kind of have to with all of the time we spend in that conference room,” answers Ashton. He smiles over at Luke and swings his hand to purposefully brush it against the back of Luke’s, the bravest he feels for a public display of affection in an elevator which could stop on any floor between here and the lobby to let strangers into their space. “I’d much rather slave away in the office with you. You’re much, much prettier than Cassidy could ever hope to be.”

Luke grins over at Ashton.

“Is that all I am to you? A pretty face?”

“Didn’t Calum and Michael give you the memo? You’ve got the prettiest face out of all of us,” says Ashton, with a hint of a good natured tease.

The truth is, though, that Luke really is beautiful, and Ashton really does think Luke is the most handsome out of them all, not that he doesn’t think Michael and Calum are attractive, too. There is just something about Luke that makes him outshine the rest of them. Perhaps it is how easily he lets people, namely Ashton, into his heart. Or perhaps it is how Luke broke his own set-rule this morning at the office just to take care of Ashton when Ashton silently needed him.

“I swear,” adds Ashton, his voice low and serious, because as much as he likes teasing Luke, he is also being completely honest with him, and Luke needs to understand that fact. “I lost my breath at the first sight of you back when we first met—still lose it, too, when I look at you.”

Luke blushes, dropping his gaze to the floor like he doesn’t quite know what to do with such a beautiful compliment. Ashton’s heart lurches in his chest. Surely, Luke has been told enough times how beautiful he is—Calum and Michael have had years to tell him such—that he should know how to handle the truth.

“You’re the cheesiest person I’ve met.”

Ashton gasps, his hand flying to his chest in mock indignation. He pushes aside the feeling of unease inside of him at how shy Luke is with him right now. It is probably just the setting. Luke isn’t the most comfortable with letting the world in on their love when they are at work.

“I’m being romantic here,” says Ashton. “Why do you think I agreed to date you? Why do you think I agreed to move in with you?”

“Because you were blown away by Michael and Calum, and because you got behind on your own rent,” says Luke, with a hint of impishness to his own voice. He chances to meet Ashton’s eyes. Gone is the earlier shyness. “I’m just a lucky perk of the package.”

Ashton rolls his eyes. He doesn’t take offense to Luke’s teasing, finding amusement in it instead. There is, however, one thing wrong with Luke’s statement.

“You are the main attraction of the package,” corrects Ashton. “I’m going to spend the rest of forever reminding you of that, if I have to.”

He expects Luke to go shy again, but that isn’t quite what happens. Luke sucks in a sudden breath in response to Ashton’s declaration. His eyes going wide in surprise, the awed kind of wonder that makes Ashton’s heart skip a beat in his chest at how heartbreakingly beautiful it is painted across Luke’s cheeks.

The air in the elevator thickens with intimacy between them. Luke and Ashton may as well be in their own little world, not merely stuck in a box descending the floors of their workplace. Luke’s fingers ghost against Ashton’s, like he wants to thread their fingers together but isn’t brave enough to right here, right now. It is a tiny thing, but, to Ashton, it feels like everything.

“I love you,” says Luke, staring straight into Ashton’s eyes. This moment feels important in all of the ways that only something so personal can. “Fuck, I love you more than I thought I would ever be allowed to, and I want you to know that.”

Ashton thinks that maybe there is a story about why Luke didn’t think he would be allowed to love Ashton anything less than with his absolute all. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it is only a nod to Luke’s attachment to Michael and Calum and how Luke wasn’t sure how Ashton would react to having to love Michael and Calum in order to love Luke back when they first got together. Ashton doesn’t know. He doesn’t ask.

Instead, he says, “I love you, too,” and he means it with all of his heart and all of his soul and all that he is.

The elevator dings a few seconds later, distilling the tension in the air. The doors split open. Luke and Ashton spill out. They don’t hold hands, but they walk as close as they can without touching all the way out of the building and to Michael’s car. All the while, Luke’s love wraps around Ashton’s heart like a second skin.

Michael is waiting on them, parked on the curb. Luke opens the front door for Ashton to take the passenger’s seat, but Ashton ushers Luke into the seat of honor instead. He leans in to press a brief, barely there kiss to Luke’s cheek, using the ruse of buckling Luke up. When he pulls away Luke’s cheeks are pink, and Luke is grinning ear to ear.

Happiness bubbles up in Ashton’s chest. He feels so overwhelmed with love for Luke right now that he almost kisses Luke full on the mouth. He doesn’t. They are still technically at work, so Luke’s rule still applies. Ashton respects it and climbs into the backseat instead, shutting the door behind him.

Michael pulls away from the curb.

“How was work?” asks Michael.

He keeps his eyes trained on the road. His question seems directed at Luke and not Ashton, because he turns his face toward Luke, as if waiting for Luke to respond. The happiness inside of Ashton’s chest dissipates slightly, like water thrown over fire, and Ashton tells himself that he is being ridiculous. Michael is probably asking him, too.

“Tedious,” answers Luke. “Jack called after lunch. He asked about you.”

“Still trying to get you to change your mind?” asks Michael.

They are at a stoplight, so he smiles over at Luke. Something dark shines in his eyes. Ashton isn’t at the right angle to determine exactly what that is.

“He and Ben both,” mumbles Luke, unhappily.

Michael frowns.

“That’s your dream. Why don’t you just tell them yes? You obviously want to.”

Luke snorts.

“You of all people should know why I have to say no.”

Michael bites his lips together, properly chastised. The light turns green. He focuses his attention back on the road. He doesn’t pursue the conversation any farther, perhaps sensing that Luke doesn’t want to talk about it, either.

“What do you have to say no to?” asks Ashton, feeling lost.

Luke doesn’t answer him at first. Michael acts like he hadn’t even heard Ashton speak at all. Ashton sits in silence for a couple of moments, waiting Luke out.

“Got any siblings?” asks Luke.

It isn’t an answer to Ashton’s question, but Ashton humors him nonetheless.

“Two,” says Ashton. “Harry and Lauren.”

“Younger, I suppose?” asks Luke, and Ashton hums in confirmation. “Ever suggest things to them that is supposed to help them out in the long run but, ultimately, they can’t do whatever it is and you know it? It’s sort of like that.”

Still, that doesn’t answer Ashton’s question, not directly, but it is better than nothing, so Ashton makes another noise in the back of his throat to indicate that he has heard what Luke has said. He thinks that maybe he sort of understands, if the phone call he had overheard between Luke and one of his brothers awhile ago is anything to go by. It must have something to do with that. Ashton could ask, but he doesn’t think he would get any clearer of an answer—not that Luke even knows Ashton eavesdropped on that particular conversation—so Ashton accepts the half-truth for what it is and drops the subject like Luke so desperately wants.

Some secrets are better off being kept.

They complete the rest of the drive in silence. It isn’t too far to the house. When they arrive, Michael parks the car in the driveway in its normal spot. Calum is already home, if his car is anything to go by, and the moving truck is suspiciously gone. It is impossible, because Ashton’s things were still inside of it this morning, but maybe Calum arranged to have everything carried inside and put away in the room that is to be Ashton’s. It is certainly a better thought than the alternative—that the moving truck is gone and so is all of Ashton’s stuff.

Ashton doesn’t dwell upon it. He is sure that Calum has taken care of everything, because Calum sent his teammates to help Ashton pack up his apartment with Calum himself got held up at work. Surely, Calum wouldn’t be so inconsiderate as to send away a truck full of nearly everything Ashton has to his name.

Luke gets out of the car first. Michael follows close behind him, so does Ashton. Together, the three of them head for the front door. Michael’s hand finds Luke’s in the space between them. The pair of them pull ahead. The sidewalk path leading up to the front door isn’t wide enough for all three of them.

Ashton falls behind, almost purposefully. An unprecedented sense of dread builds in his chest. He isn’t sure if it is because he hasn’t seen Calum in the past day or if it is because Calum is here now but he wasn’t when they all needed him to be. Ashton isn’t sure what to expect on the other side of the door—if Calum will act as if nothing out of the ordinary happened whatsoever or if Calum will fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for being so absent when they all needed him the most.

Whatever is on the other side of the door, Ashton will soon find out. Michael pushes open the door when he reaches it then guides Luke inside of the house. It seems neither he nor Luke harbor the same dread Ashton feels in his bones.

In a strange act of kindness for the day, Michael is nice enough to hold the door open for Ashton, too. When Ashton enters the house, Michael shuts the door behind them all then sidesteps around Ashton to catch up with Luke. He threads his fingers through Luke’s, and they fit there like they aren’t meant to be anywhere else. Michael’s kindness is gone.

Calum appears in the doorway to the kitchen, like he was waiting on them to get home. By the way the relieved smile stretched across his lips, Ashton thinks Calum probably really was waiting for them to arrive. There is hesitance behind Calum’s smile, matched by the glint of anxiety in his eyes. His gaze flits over Michael, like he can’t bear to not acknowledge Michael’s larger-than-life presence, but, ultimately, he only has eyes for Luke.

“I’m sorry,” says Calum, solemnly.

Luke’s response is immediate, as if he has been waiting this whole time to hear Calum utter such a heartfelt declaration. He doesn’t let Calum say anything else. Perhaps he doesn’t need to hear anything else, because that is the way Luke and Calum’s relationship is wired. Luke never demands much. This time is no different.

“It’s okay,” says Luke.

He steps toward Calum. Since Michael’s hand is clasped in his own, Luke takes Michael with him. They meet Calum halfway, and Calum throws his arms around both Luke and Michael. He presses a soft kiss to Luke’s lips, like he is afraid Luke might disappear with before him if Luke isn’t kissed so gently. He kisses Michael after he pulls away from Luke, but it a brief affair before his eyes are back on Luke.

“It isn’t, but I’m going to work on that, I swear to you,” says Calum. “Dinner’s on the table. I made your favorite, because, sometimes, I forget you need me, too.”

Calum kisses Luke one last time. It is even softer than the first one. He lets go of both Michael and Luke, ushering them toward the kitchen. He doesn’t move to follow them. He turns his attention to Ashton, who stands all alone next to the front door.

Ashton feels small underneath Calum’s gaze. He kind of wishes he would have been a part of the three-way hug a moment ago, but he understands that there are still some things in this relationship that he doesn’t know about. There are some things still in this relationship that occur without him. There always will be. Everybody will be left out at some point. It is inevitable, but it isn’t mean. It isn’t unfair on its face, either. It is only for the strengthening of their overall relationship—as long as they are all on the same page.

So Ashton pushes aside the tiny flare of jealousy in the pit of his stomach and focuses on Calum before him instead.

“I took off work today and moved all of your things into the spare bedroom—into _your_ room. I didn’t unpack anything, and I’m not sure how you wanted to arrange your furniture, but I will gladly move around whatever isn’t to your liking. The other furniture you had, I put it in the storage room in the basement, but if there is anything that you would like to use up here—like that leather recliner, I’ll bring it back up and put it in the living room for you.”

Though Calum waits for an answer, Ashton doesn’t say anything about his furniture, either in his bedroom or in the basement. It doesn’t matter to him. The furniture he has is old and second hand, and he’ll probably end up selling it instead of using it. The layout of his bedroom isn’t important either, since he isn’t going to be using it except to, maybe, store his clothes in. That seems to be the way that the others do it. Luke keeps his clothes in his separate bedroom, and Michael and Calum similarly keep their clothes in theirs.

“You didn’t have to unpack the van all by yourself,” says Ashton, touched.

Calum shrugs.

“I sort of owed you one for saying that I’d help pack it all up and then bailing on you. I am sorry for that. I hope that you can forgive me.”

“I already have,” says Ashton. “I kind of figured you helped indirectly anyway by sending over your teammates. There is no way Mike and Luke and I could have packed up my old apartment so quickly by ourselves.”

“I wanted to do better by you,” says Calum, shaking his head. “Sending my teammates wasn’t good enough, so I thought I would finish moving you home and let you relax after work. You deserve to kick back after working so hard yesterday evening packing everything up without my help.”

Ashton smiles.

“So does that mean we can all go to bed early tonight in the big bed upstairs? Because it wasn’t right at all last night without you.”

“Anything you want,” agrees Calum with a laugh. It is a sad sort of sound, like he is as disappointed that he did not coming home last night as Ashton and the others are. His eyes shine bright with relief. “Anything to make you happy.”

The distance between Ashton and Calum is too great. It feels like they are an entire world apart. Ashton doesn’t like it, so he walks over to Calum. He stops an arm’s length away. Already, he feels less lonely within reach of Calum for the first time in over twenty-four hours.

“You already do make me happy. You and Mike and Luke. I don’t know what I would do without you,” says Ashton, softly. He ducks his head, unable to look Calum in the eyes for his embarrassing confession. “I wasn’t in a good place before you, and I don’t want to think about where I might be right now if it weren’t for you all.”

But Ashton need not to have worried about being self-conscious about the total failure of an adult he was before he met Luke and Calum and Michael. Calum is right there pulling him into a hug. It feels like Calum’s arms were made to be wrapped around Ashton as much as they were to be wrapped around Luke or Michael. Calum presses the lightest of kisses to the corner of Ashton’s lips.

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to find out,” says Calum, tightening his hold on Ashton until Ashton settles against his chest, safe and loved in the vulnerable aftermath of the confession. “You’ve got us for now... and forever.”


	17. Chapter 17

The bed is full that night, unlike the previous one. Ashton sleeps on the edge of the bed curled up around Luke with Michael and Calum on the other side. It should be comforting, the four of them together, but Ashton lays awake most of the night, sleepless, staring up at the ceiling above him.  

He can’t figure Michael out. He doesn’t understand how Michael went from warm and loving to cold and distant. Sure, he had turned down Michael’s advance in the shower that morning, but he has turned down Michael’s offer for sex before when he had accidentally walked in on Calum going down on Michael a little while ago. Michael certainly hadn’t acted like this afterward, so it has to be something else that has caused such a change.

For the life of Ashton, though, he can’t pinpoint what is different about today as compared to every other one he has shared with Michael, Luke, and Calum. Whatever it is—whatever marks today as unusual—has to be the reason Michael hasn’t wanted to kiss Ashton or hold Ashton or even look Ashton’s way. It is puzzling and upsetting, and it is a long, long time before pure exhaustion forces him to sleep. Even then, he sleeps uneasily the rest of the night.

The next morning, Calum fixes them all breakfast. Ashton tarries in the shower until the absolute last minute then rushes about to get ready for the day. He skips out on the oatmeal and cinnamon toast that Calum had cooked so that he doesn’t have to sit down to a meal with Michael. He doesn’t even try to lie to himself that he isn’t avoiding Michael. After the whole day of Michael’s cold demeanor and then worrying all of last night over what Ashton himself has done to Michael for him to act this way, it hurts too much to think about Michael. Ashton could only imagine how much worse it would hurt if, today, Michael is still distant.

Calum catches Ashton at the bottom of the steps.

“Here,” he says, thrusting a coffee cup into his hands. “Didn’t want you to miss breakfast. I know how hard they’re working you.”

Ashton looks down at the cup. It is three-fourths full of steaming oatmeal. A rush of gratitude surges up in Ashton’s chest. He forgets all about Michael’s coldness and feels immediately guilty for purposefully skipping breakfast. He has never done so before. He is always so eager to spend time with Luke and Calum and, usually, Michael that he never avoids any of them.

“Cal,” says Ashton, his voice breaking with the amount of love welling up in his chest. “You didn’t have to.”

“Of course, I did,” counters Calum. He offers Ashton a soft, fond smile. “It’s my job to take care of you, just like it is for me to take care of Michael and Luke.”

“I love you,” says Ashton. He means it with his whole heart. He doesn’t know if he has ever meant it as much before—except when he has said it to Michael and Luke. “I am sorry I missed breakfast, but thank you for taking care of me anyway.”

“We all have those mornings, don’t we?” asks Calum, quietly. He looks away from Ashton to the front door, where, presumably Michael and Luke have just left through. His lips fall into a slight frown, and it makes Ashton’s heart skip a beat in his chest. “Waking up and feeling like we can’t face our demons? But I want you to know you can. I believe in you, and, more than that, I swear I will do anything to help you.”

Ashton feels so overcome with gratitude that his breath catches in his throat. He feels safe and comforted, wrapped up in Calum’s love, and he wishes he could stay secured in this moment forever. He wants to throw himself into Calum’s arms and demand to know why Michael is acting the way he is acting, but Ashton doesn’t.

His heart freezes over in the next second as Calum turns back to him, still wearing that heartache-inducing frown on his lips. Ashton feels like the tiniest person in the entire world underneath that frown. He draws his fears of Michael closer to his chest and paints on a smile instead.

“It’s nothing like that,” lies Ashton. “I think this project at work is just making me groggy of a morning. Couldn’t pull myself away from the shower, to be honest.”

It is half of the truth. The work project is getting ridiculously hard—to the point that Ashton is almost certain he and Cassidy are going to have to start pulling overtime hours, maybe even today. It is enough of a burden that Ashton is tempted to just call into work to not have to deal with it, but he couldn’t be that cruel to Cassidy, who is already working against the clock to get it down to the big boss’s wishes.

At any rate, the half-truth is easier to allow fall from his lips than the real truth would be. Ashton loves Calum, and he loves Michael even with Michael’s recent attitude. He doesn’t want to cause strife over nothing—and this is nothing. _It is_. Michael is only distant with Ashton. Michael opens doors for Luke and kisses Luke, and he kisses Calum, too. It is only Ashton Michael doesn’t kiss, and it hurts worlds less to pretend like that means nothing to Ashton than to admit that it is honestly, truthfully, one hundred percent soul-crushing when Michael kisses everybody but him.

“May have to flush the toilet on you tomorrow morning then,” teases Calum.

He chuckles, and it almost sounds genuine. Ashton forces a smile in response. He imagines, in any other situation, that Calum’s threat might be humorous enough to laugh at. Tension settles thick between them. Ashton can’t bring himself to laugh, not with his heart aching over Michael.

“I’d better get going,” says Ashton. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Anytime,” says Calum.

He leans forward and presses a soft kiss against Ashton’s cheek. Ashton lets himself fall into it in the brief span of seconds that Calum’s lips rest against his skin. It is over before it really begins. Calum ushers Ashton to the door.

“Don’t want to tempt Luke to leave you,” says Calum, joking.

“Luke would never leave me,” says Ashton

He believes what he says, but he goes anyway. Michael’s sleek black car is gone from the driveway. Luke sits in the driver’s seat of Calum’s car. Ashton hurries to climb into the passenger’s seat. The cab of the car is cozy warm, a stark contrast to the chilly morning.

“How is Cal getting to work?” asks Ashton.

“Don’t think he’s going in today,” answers Luke. He waits until Ashton has buckled his seat belt before he puts the car in reverse and backs out of the driveway. “I think it’s that time of the year when he has to renegotiate his contract, ‘cause he said training was cancelled this week as the team recruited new players, and—oh, I love this song!”

Luke reaches over for the radio dial and turns the volume up. He freezes with his hand on the dial. He glances at Ashton to make sure it is okay that they listen to music. Ashton’s curiosity is satisfied, so he nods his consent. Luke grins at him, happy. He settles back in his seat and begins to sing along to the song on the radio. Ashton revels in Luke’s beautiful voice as he eats his oatmeal.

When they get to the office, Luke parks the car then hurries it around to open the door for Ashton. It is such a gentlemanly gesture that Ashton sits in his seat and grins at Luke for a solid minute. It must be contagious, because Luke grins right back. He leans into the car, away from any prying eyes, and places a fleeting kiss to Ashton’s lips then straightens back up. It is so quick of a move that a random passerby would merely think Luke had been reaching into the car to retrieve something.

“What was that for?” asks Ashton, delighted.

Luke shrugs.

“’Cause I love you.”

“I love you, too,” says Ashton, because he has to say it back. Luke deserves to be reminded that he is, indeed, loved. “You’re going to spoil me.”

Luke smiles. He offers Ashton his hand and helps Ashton out of the car, even though Ashton is very capable of doing so by himself. Luke presses the lock button then shuts the car door after Ashton.

“That’s the plan,” he says. “I know my work rule is a little ridiculous.”

“It isn’t,” argues Ashton.

“I just—people have a hard enough time accepting me for who I am and not who they see me as that I don’t want to give them any other reasons to dislike me,” continues Luke as if Ashton hadn’t spoken. “Yesterday morning, I realized that it was hurting you.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It was,” counters Luke. He shakes his head, but he is smiling so warmly at Ashton that he can’t keep it up for more than a couple of seconds. “Stop trying to defend me, dammit. I’m trying to tell you that I would like to hold your hand walking into the building, and I would like to be able to comfort you any time you need it, as long as we keep work strictly professional.”

“You don’t need to change anything about you for me,” says Ashton. “I love you enough to respect the lines you have drawn at work.”

“I shouldn’t have drawn any lines,” says Luke. “There isn’t a policy against interoffice relationships. I shouldn’t carry on as if there are.”

“There is nothing wrong with keeping our relationship out of the office.”

“No,” agrees Luke, “there isn’t, but there is nothing wrong in wanting to be able to call you mine if somebody at work asks, either, is there?”

Ashton pauses. He finally catches onto what Luke means—that Luke wants to be proud of dating Ashton. It makes Ashton go warm all over. His breath catches in his throat.

“You mean it? You want to call me yours to the people we work with? To Cassidy? Or to Jimmy? Or to anyone?”

“Anyone,” confirms Luke. “You’re nobody to be ashamed of—not that I ever was ashamed of you or Mike or Cal. I just—this job is really important to me, you know? But you all are important to me, too—more important, even.”

“Luke…” says Ashton, trailing off, because he doesn’t quite know how to express the amount of love welling up in his chest right now. He wants to kiss Luke, press their lips together and never, ever let up. He wants Luke to taste the amount of love Ashton has for him.

But he doesn’t, because they are standing right outside of their work, and while Luke says he wants to repeal his rule against public displays of affection in the workplace, Ashton doesn’t think Luke would be up for making out on the steps of the their work. Truthfully, Ashton wouldn’t be up for it, either.

“You don’t have to kiss me at work to prove how important I am to you,” says Ashton, because Luke doesn’t.

“No,” agrees Luke, “but I’d kinda like to hold your hand right now.”

To emphasize his point, Luke extends his hand to Ashton and waits for Ashton to make the connecting move. Here Luke stands vulnerable before Ashton against the backdrop of the building in which they work. The amount of love Ashton feels for Luke right here, right now nearly brings Ashton to his knees.

He places his hand in Luke’s. Their fingers slot perfectly together. Luke’s lips spread into an immediately grin. Ashton wants to kiss him—the smile is too beautiful to not want to taste—but Luke kisses him first. It steals the breath straight from Ashton’s lungs. Ashton’s heart pounds like a kick drum in his chest.

Ashton pulls away, unwilling to break the kiss but knowing they need to be in their shared office in just a few precious moments. He leans back only far enough to see Luke’s whole face. He wants nothing more than to dip back in for another kiss, but he doesn’t. Neither of them can afford the time.

“You make me never want to let you go,” says Ashton. “I can’t imagine my life without you.”

Luke smiles, a blush rising dark on his cheeks. He drops his gaze toward the ground, like he can’t quite believe his own importance to Ashton. Luke’s insecurity makes Ashton’s heart lurch in the worst of ways. He squeezes Luke’s hand, holding it as tight as he can like, maybe, the tighter he holds Luke, the more Luke will believe him.

“I don’t want a life without you,” murmurs Luke, almost too quiet for Ashton to hear. “You make me—I never feel unloved with you.”

“I would love you even if I couldn’t hold your hand at work,” says Ashton. “I would love you even if I never held your hand at all.”

“You make me want to skip work and waste the day away with you. Maybe drive to the beach. Maybe never come back.”

Ashton grins.

“Tempting,” he agrees, because the idea of Luke in swimming trunks underneath the golden sun makes Ashton’s heart flutter in his chest. “But I think Cassidy would personally hunt me down and drag me back here so that she won’t get saddled with finishing the project by herself.”

“Too bad,” says Luke. “How close are you all to being finished?”

“Finished or not, it’s due next Friday, so I have a feeling I’ll be pulling late hours soon—maybe even today.”

Luke frowns.

“Well, I suppose we had better head on in or else I won’t see you at all tonight.”

Ashton understands Luke’s frown now, because he himself isn’t looking forward to wasting precious time at work when he could be with Luke, Calum, and Michael instead. He steps back from Luke but keeps his hand clasped in Luke’s. Together, they walk hand-in-hand into the building. Ashton doesn’t stop grinning the entire time.

* * * * *

Cassidy has everything laid out on the table when Ashton walks in after leaving Luke alone in their shared office. There are papers spread everywhere. The four corners of the table are accented by stacks of manila folders filled to the brim with the work they have already completed.

“This much left, huh?” asks Ashton as a way of a greeting.

“Yep, and it’s an accurate representation of the patience I have left for this project,” she says. “Want that pile or this one?”

Ashton looks at the two contenders. The slightly fatter pile is nearest to him on the table. He chooses it for the convenience of sitting down in the nearest chair rather than having to uproot Cassidy. He is pretty sure she has taken on the most work over the course of the entire project anyhow.

He can cut her a break today. She looks like she needs it.  Her usually immaculate hair is thrown back into a half-hearted ponytail, with strands of it already falling loose of the elastic band. Underneath her eyes, her skin is a dark shade of purple, belying how stressful this project has been from the start.

Ashton is just the helping hand. Cassidy is the one whose job is on the line if this project isn’t finished by the deadline. Ashton has grown to like Cassidy, despite their original disagreement about Luke. Cassidy hasn’t once spoken ill of Luke and has actually made it a point over the past few days to ask after his well-being. Ashton knows it is all small-talk, that Cassidy doesn’t actually care about how Luke is doing, but he appreciates the friendly gesture for what it is.

They work diligently on the project all morning. Come lunch, Ashton sneaks away like usual to enjoy it with Luke, but he finds the office empty when he gets there. There is a handwritten note waiting on him, tacked to his computer screen, from Luke that says he has a lunchtime meeting with the big boss. It must have been a recently scheduled meeting, because Luke hadn’t said anything about it this morning.

“Where’s Luke?” asks Cassidy from the doorway of the office.

Ashton whips around to face her. He had thought she was on her way to the break room. Most of the time she packs her own lunch, but it seems that, today, she didn’t. Perhaps she was running late this morning and didn’t have time to fix her own lunch before she left. Perhaps it is the stress of the project.

“A meeting,” said Ashton, holding up the handwritten note. “Looks like I’m on my own today.”

“You’re not,” she says. “Grab your coat. Lunch is on me.”

“I packed lunch.”

“Just ran into Jimmy. We’ve been cleared for overtime until we finish this project,” said Cassidy. “You’ll probably get hungry later.”

Ashton sighs, already dreading the long hours in his future. He doesn’t complain. He knows how important the project is to Cassidy—is to Cassidy keeping her job—and he also knows that completion of the project will reflect positively on him, too. He might even get a slight pay raise, which would be nice, since he now has a mortgage to pay on and three other people to pay bills and groceries for. 

“You’re just buttering me up so that I will take the other mountainous stack this afternoon,” says Ashton, teasing.

He reaches for his coat. Cassidy laughs. She doesn’t even try to deny his argument. He doesn’t bother telling her that he was going to offer to tackle it himself without here needing to bribe him for lunch. He doesn’t really want to eat lunch alone with Luke stuck in a meeting. He scribbles down a quick note to Luke—an explanation that he went to lunch with Cassidy—and signs it with an ‘I love you,’ because he hasn’t said it to Luke in a while. Then he follows Cassidy out into the hallway.

* * * * *

Cassidy ends up taking Ashton to a small sandwich shop around the corner from the office. Apparently, it is a place frequented by several of their coworkers. Ashton recognizes most of the people who call out a greeting to Cassidy. Some of them even offer him a greeting, too. Martin from the tech is among the throng of coworkers packed into the sandwich shop.

Ashton orders a turkey sub with lettuce, black olives, and mayo. He gets a water with it. Cassidy buys a big bag of potato chips and offers to split it with him. She orders a dressed up Italian sub then pays the cashier the correct amount of change.

There aren’t any free tables, so they join Martin for lunch. Ashton sits down at the table with a sense of dread filling his chest. He hasn’t seen much of Martin since that time a few months ago when Martin had spoken unkindly of Luke and had warned Ashton to watch himself. Ashton doesn’t imagine this lunch conversation is going to be any better, but he is hungry. This place is packed, and Cassidy was nice enough to buy his lunch. Ashton stays put.

“Where’s lover-boy?” asks Martin between bites of his own sandwich. It is dripping with so much mustard that the condiment runs down the side of his hand.

“Be nice,” snaps Cassidy before Ashton can utter a response. She throws a brown napkin across the table to Martin. “You’re just mad, because he isn’t as stuck up as you painted him out to be before he transferred here. He’s actually pretty cool.”

Martin snorts. He uses the napkin to sop up the mustard on his hands. He crumbles it before dropping it to the table. He takes another bite of his sandwich. He doesn’t bothering to finish eating before he speaks again. Crumbs fly everywhere. Ashton recoils, disgusted.

“Why ya figure that? Hemmings doesn’t hang out with nobody ‘cept him.”

He points a beefy finger in Ashton’s direction. Ashton busies himself with eating own lunch before he loses his appetite due to Martin’s poor table manners. He would hate to have to throw away a perfectly good sandwich, especially since Cassidy bought it for him.

“Ashton likes him, so that’s good enough for me,” answers Cassidy, with a shrug.

She shoots Ashton an apologetic glance, but, really, she doesn’t need to apologize for Martin’s behavior. It isn’t her place. Ashton appreciates it all the same. Before this project began, Cassidy would have probably gone along with whatever Martin spouted off about Luke. Now, she respects Ashton’s opinion enough to stand up for Ashton and, through that, Luke.

“Yeah, but—”

“No butts at the dinner table, Marty,” interrupts Cassidy, grinning as she commandeers the conversation. “You never did tell me how your date with Gloria went.”

“No,” answers Martin. He blushes straight to the tips of his ears. Ashton hadn’t been aware that Martin could even feel the slightest bit of self-consciousness. “I didn’t.”

Then he launches into his story about how his six PM date with the nurse who lives down the hall from him led to a magical night. Ashton doesn’t listen to the story. He doesn’t consider Martin a friend, so he doesn’t care for the affairs Martin gets up to. He sits and eats his sandwich and wishes he were in his office with Luke instead eating whatever homemade lunch Calum had packed for them.

“Thanks,” he mutters under his breath to Cassidy when Martin pauses his story to take a bite of his sandwich.

Cassidy smiles at him. It is a brief affair before she returns her attention to Martin, who has shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth. He doesn’t bother waiting until he is finished chewing before he continues his story of what is, in his words, the most epic romance in the twenty-first century.

Ashton scoots a little farther away from the table and tunes Martin’s story out. He thinks about Luke instead. He wonders what meeting could be so important that it had to take place during lunch. He knows that is an unfair question. Luke is a low man on the totem pole at the office, like Ashton, so he doesn’t have any say in what the big bosses tell him what to do. All the rationalization in the world, however, can’t erase the disappointment Ashton feels for having to eat lunch with Cassidy rather than Luke.

Martin takes his leave a few minutes later. Ashton nearly misses his exit, but Martin makes a show of saying goodbye to Cassidy and not Ashton. It is useless, petty theatrics at best. The joke is on Martin. Ashton is just thrilled that Martin is leaving regardless of whether or not Martin is courteous enough to offer a general farewell.

“Sorry,” says Cassidy the moment Martin is gone. “I honestly didn’t think he would be so childish.”

Ashton shrugs.

“It’s not your fault,” he says.

“No,” she agrees, “but I meant to treat you to a nice lunch, and, well, I guess I still owe you one.”

 “You could offer to take the big stack when we get back to the office, and I’ll pretend like this was the best lunch of my entire life.”

“I’ll buy you lunch the next time Luke has another meeting. How about that?” she counters, grinning.

Ashton laughs. He hadn’t believed she would take him up on his offer since the stack in question waiting on them is so tall that Ashton bets it will take all evening, including overtime, to finish. He likes that he and Cassidy have reached the point where they could be considered friends and can tease one another. Ashton hasn’t had many friends, and the friends that he has had, he isn’t sure they would count as friends.

“I’m going to go freshen up in the lady’s room,” says Cassidy, all proper, but then she adds on, “I’ve had to piss since we got here.”

She leaves, picking her purse and then twisting her way through the mess of tables toward the restrooms on the other side of the shop. Ashton has a fourth of his sandwich left, and there is a handful of potato chips left at the bottom of the bag Cassidy had bought. It is bad manners to waste food that others have bought, or so Ashton has always believed, so he plans to scarf down the rest of his meal in Cassidy’s absence.

However, the moment Cassidy is gone, somebody else sits down in the seat Martin had vacated a few moments ago. Ashton looks up, an indignant statement on his lips about how strangers shouldn’t feel so entitled to a table that is already occupied. The words die in his throat. His lunch sets heavy in his churning stomach. A cold sweat breaks out on his forehead. He hasn’t seen this man in nearly two and a half years, but a face like this—a face that still haunts Ashton’s dreams to this day—isn’t so easily forgotten.

Brandon.

He looks every bit as put together as he had when he was twenty-four with Ashton’s entire world trapped in his hands. He is older than Ashton remembers, but, of course, that is to be expected. He still wears his blond hair in a slick back style. A pair of black framed glasses rest on the bridge of his nose. When Ashton knew him, the glasses were a mere fashion statement. They probably still are to this day. They offset Brandon’s immaculate button-down burgundy shirt and pressed black trousers too well to be anything except fashionable.

“She’s pretty,” says Brandon, conversationally.

He nods in the direction Cassidy had left in as if he could have been referring to any other woman. He reaches over and steals a potato chip from the bag then pops it into his mouth. Ashton is too stunned to stop him.

“Not as easy on the eyes as the man who answered your door, but you’ve always had a knack for weaseling your way into the lives of those much more attractive than you.”

Brandon smiles. It looks more like a smirk. He reaches for another chip. Ashton feels insignificantly tiny underneath Brandon’s gaze. Ashton’s stomach flip flops. Bile rushes up his throat. He feels like he needs to vomit right here in the middle of the sandwich shop in front of the one man Ashton had hoped he would never see again.

“Wasn’t nice of you to just disappear like you did. Took me a while to track you down. Thought you might have… died without me.”

_I was dying because of you_ , thinks Ashton. He would never, ever be brave enough to admit that, not to Brandon, no matter how true it is. Ashton shudders to think what might have happened if he would have never gotten out from underneath Brandon’s thumb. He would probably still be stuck in that shoebox of an apartment, slowly going insane, or, worse, he would probably be dead.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the old days,” continues Brandon, like there is nothing odd at all about Ashton staring at him, wide-eyed and stock-still. He munches on the rest of Cassidy’s potato chips as if they are his own. “About how good they were. You and me, we were thick as thieves, weren’t we?”

The question may as well be rhetoric. Brandon pauses like it actually isn’t, but it doesn’t matter. Ashton’s tongue feels like a lead weight in his mouth. He couldn’t speak even if he had known what to say.

“Be nice to go back to that, wouldn’t it?” suggests Brandon.  

Ashton shakes his head once. In the end, it is nothing more than the slightest inkling of a movement of his head. It is enough. Brandon’s smile falls into a frown. He narrows his eyes, obviously offended by such a minute disagreement.

“Don’t be like that—don’t you miss the old days? You and me taking on the world?”

 That isn’t how Ashton would describe the aforementioned old days if he were brave enough to recount them. The merest recollection of the days when Ashton’s entire world began and ended with Brandon brings a shiver right down Ashton’s spine. Ashton wouldn’t trade the life he has now for anything in the world and most certainly not for the hell that was his life with Brandon.

“You know, I’m getting tired of carrying on this conversation by myself,” says Brandon. There is a change in his voice. Ashton notices a change in the air, too. He would swear the temperature of the room dropped. “You’re shaking like a drowned cat, Ash. Pull yourself together.”

Ashton clenches his trembling hands into fists and hides them underneath the table. He says nothing to Brandon. He wishes Brandon were gone. Or, better yet, he wishes that he, himself, were anywhere else in the entire world—namely back at the office eating lunch with Luke. Even eating lunch by himself in the office he shares with Luke would be better than sitting an arm’s length away from his living nightmare.

Brandon reaches across the table in the space of Ashton’s silence, his fingers already curling into the shape of Ashton’s wrist, ready to fit perfectly around Ashton’s arm. Even after all of these years, Brandon still knows the best way to subdue Ashton—one hand around his wrist to draw Ashton close and not let him go.

A tremor of terror runs straight down Ashton’s spine. He flinches back with enough force to shove his chair away from the table. The legs of the chair scrape loudly against the tiled floor, cutting through the low rumble of chatter in the shop. Ashton wishes even more right now that he was safe in his office with Luke. But he isn’t. He is all alone in a sandwich shop with Brandon.

“Is there a problem here?” demands Cassidy.

She appears almost out of nowhere, placing herself right next to the table and mostly shielding Ashton from Brandon. She adopts a defensive posture with her arms folded across her chest and a stern expression etched onto her face. Ashton has never been so relieved to see her in his entire life. She glances at Ashton but keeps her attention zoned in on Brandon.

“This table wasn’t up for the grabs,” she says.

Brandon shrugs, barely offering her a second glance. He lazily leans back in his chair. He rests his gaze on Ashton and begins to smile again.

“Me and Ash go way back, don’t we?”

Cassidy laughs. The sound drips with disbelief. Brandon’s eyes flit to her and narrow. He sits straighter in his seat. He has always been easy to bait.

“I’ve known Ashton for ages,” says Cassidy in a tone of voice that matches her laugh. She lies so well that Ashton almost believes that he and she have known each other for longer than just a few months. “He’s never mentioned you, so I dunno about you, but it sounds to me like you and Ashton don’t go back far enough for him to want you to interrupt his lunch.”

“You don’t know everything,” says Brandon.

He stands up, drawing himself up to his full height so that he can unleash his might on Cassidy. He stands a good head taller than Cassidy does, but it doesn’t have the kind of intimidating factor with Cassidy that it does with Ashton. Cassidy merely shakes her head at him then turns to Ashton like Brandon doesn’t even exist.

“Are you ready?”

Ashton is. He stands on unsteady feet and forces himself to look at Cassidy, not Brandon. If he looks anywhere in the vicinity of Brandon, he fears his knees might give out from underneath him. He can’t handle any longer in Brandon’s presence. He needs to leave. More than that, he needs Luke.

“You’ll take care of the mess, right?” asks Cassidy, speaking over her shoulder to Brandon.

She doesn’t wait for a response. The question is more of a command. She loops her arm through Ashton’s and uses it to drag Ashton away from the table. Ashton focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, but the weight of Brandon’s heavy gaze isn’t so easy to ignore.

They walk back to the office in stone silence. Cassidy doesn’t remove her arm from Ashton’s, and neither does he try to let go of Cassidy. He needs her support. He needs it like he needed his sister’s support two and a half years ago when he walked away from Brandon for good. She had held his hand all the way to their mother’s house. Now, it is Cassidy’s turn.

It is only when they are in the elevator heading back up to their floor that Cassidy finally speaks.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Ashton sighs. His stomach is still churning, but his tongue feels lighter. He shakes his head.

“Wasn’t your fault,” he says, quietly. His voice shakes only the slightest bit over the syllables. “I didn’t even know he was in the city.”

It is a lie, sort of. Ashton has known on some level that Brandon has been in the city since the day he woke up to an eviction notice taped to his front door. Brandon had even showed up on the doorstep of Ashton’s old apartment and given Michael an envelope full of money. Ashton has known that Brandon was in town. He just hadn’t expected Brandon to ambush him in a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop around the corner from his work—except he should have expected Brandon to do just that.

“Let me guess. Sordid ex-boyfriend?”

Ashton snorts.

“It’d probably be a prettier story if that were the case,” he says. “He was a friend, I guess.”

“Some friend,” she says.

He laughs, humorless. It is enough to make him feel human again, so he lets go of Cassidy and steps a respectable distance away. He looks up at the numbers above the elevator doors and watches as they ascend. He doesn’t care to hash out the tumultuous history that had led straight to that sandwich shop, not with Cassidy.

“Yeah,” he agrees, flatly, “some friend.”

The elevator stops on their floor. For a second, nothing happens. Then the doors split open. Cassidy motions for Ashton to step out first.

“Thank you,” he says. Heat rushes to his cheeks. He should have stood up to Brandon himself. “I really appreciated you having my back.”

“I’ve always got your back. You saved my ass on this project. The least I can do is save you from some jerk at the sandwich shop,” she says. She glances at the clock on the wall, reading the time. “Why don’t you take a few more minutes for lunch? I’ll get started on the big stack, and you drop in and say hi to Luke.”

“I couldn’t—”

“You can,” she disagrees, “so go.”

He doesn’t argue anymore. He thanks her one more time then departs, heading for his office. He hopes that Luke is back from his lunch meeting. He feels better now than he did leaving the sandwich shop, but he still needs to fall apart in Luke’s arms for a few minutes and feel Luke hold him together.

The office door is closed when Ashton turns the corner. He tries the handle and finds it unlocked, so he pushes it open. Luke is seated at his computer. The monitor is lit with one of the programs they use to keep track of all of the figures. An array of documents is spread out on his desk. He looks like he hasn’t been back from lunch for long, but he is here, and that is all that matters.

Ashton breathes out a sigh of relief. He shuts the door behind him. Luke glances over his shoulder, a grin making its way onto his face when he realizes it is Ashton. The grin fades almost as quickly as it appears when he takes in the way Ashton’s fists still tremble at his sides.

“What happened?” he asks, standing up.

Ashton takes it as permission to cross the room and fall into Luke’s arms, so that is what he does. Luke catches him, of course, and holds him tight. Ashton buries his face into the crook of Luke’s shoulder. A thousand responses run through his mind for Luke’s question, but he can’t utter a single one.

“Tell me you love me,” begs Ashton. “Please, tell me you love me.”

“I love you,” says Luke, immediately. He sounds like he means it, too, not just like he is merely parroting Ashton’s plea. He holds Ashton even tighter, as if the tighter he holds Ashton, the more he loves Ashton. “I love you so much that you make me forget how it feels not to be loved.”

Ashton revels in the words that fall from Luke’s lips. Here, in Luke’s arms, Brandon can’t get to Ashton. He can’t, because Luke loves Ashton too much. Ashton is safe. Ashton is loved. Ashton is free.


	18. Chapter 18

As predicted, Ashton works late into the night with Cassidy. Luke leaves around quitting time. He stops by to see if Ashton needs anything before he leaves. Ashton doesn’t, except he needs to kiss Luke once more before they part ways and Ashton is stuck at work for the rest of the evening. Cassidy ducks out of the room for a restroom break to give them their privacy. Luke kisses Ashton until their lips are numb then leaves Ashton to his work. He offers to come back later and pick Ashton up, but Cassidy lives a few streets away from the house, so she takes him home at eleven o’clock instead.

Ashton arrives home to a dark house. There is a cold supper in the refrigerator for him. He is so tired and hungry that he doesn’t bother warming it up in the microwave. He eats it cold in front of the refrigerator instead. When he is finished, he leaves the dish to soak in the sink.

He stumbles his way up the stairs, all the way to the bedroom that contains all of his clothes. He strips out of his work clothes then into a t-shirt and sleeping pants, half-asleep already. He sits down on the bed to take off his socks. It feels so good to sit down that he lays back. He tells himself he is going to rest for a moment then get up and go to bed with the others in the master bedroom.

He falls asleep, waking only a couple of hours later when he feels the bed dip with the weight of another body. The entire room is nearly pitch black, but Ashton can see the faint outline of the door standing ajar. Luke crawls across the bed and manhandles Ashton underneath the covers. Still mostly asleep, Ashton is easy underneath Luke’s hands. He settles back into the bed, beneath the covers this time, and Luke curls around him, laying his head on Ashton’s shoulder.

“Didn’t mean to fall asleep,” slurs Ashton. “Meant to join you all in the other room. Just so tired.”

“Don’t worry about that,” says Luke. He is obviously more awake than Ashton. Perhaps he has been tossing and turning all night in Ashton’s absence. Or perhaps he got up to go to the toilet and wondered where Ashton was. “You’ve worked hard all day. Just get some sleep.”

Ashton’s old bed is nowhere near the size that is in the master bedroom, but with only Luke curled up next to him, the bed feels entirely too big. He thinks about telling Luke this, about telling Luke they should probably join Calum and Michael in the master bedroom, but his eyelids feel too heavy to keep open. Ashton drifts back off to sleep with Luke snuggled up next to him.

The next morning, Ashton has breakfast on the go again. This time, it isn’t because he purposefully oversleeps. Rather, he sleeps through his alarm and only wakes up when Calum comes to see about him. Calum finds Ashton fast asleep in an empty bed. He crosses the room to sit down on the edge of the mattress, placing his hand on Ashton’s shoulder and gently shaking him.

“’S time to get up, Ash,” says Calum, softly. “You’re going to be late.”

Ashton blinks open his eyes, still groggy.

“Time is it?” he slurs, vaguely wondering if he has time to shower.

“About twenty ‘til,” says Calum. He leaves the bed, heading over to Ashton’s dresser. He starts to dig through the drawers, pulling out clothes as he goes. “I thought you were already up, but you didn’t come down for breakfast, and Luke said you were still sleeping when he went to take a shower.”

Ashton sits up on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs over until his feet rest on the floor. He stifles a yawn. He is still so, so tired. He thinks about calling in and taking the day off, so that he can sleep, but he can’t do that to Cassidy. He can’t leave her hanging on what is the most important project of her career.

“Change into these then go brush your teeth,” says Calum, shoving a pile of clothes into Ashton’s hands. “Your shoes are by the door. I’ll go make you a quick breakfast.”

“Don’t have t’do that,” says Ashton, still sleepy. He stands up from the bed, intent on obliging Calum’s command, but he sways on his feet and has to sit back down. “You’ve already done so much to take care of me this morning already.”

“It’s my job to take care of you, isn’t it?” says Calum, shrugging.

He reaches down to help Ashton back to his feet. Once there, he doesn’t let go of Ashton until he is sure that Ashton can stand on his own. Ashton smiles stupidly at him. 

“I fall in love with you a little more every day, you know that?” asks Ashton. “You do things like this, and you don’t have to.”

It is true. Calum doesn’t have to make him breakfast every morning or drag him out of bed when he accidentally oversleeps or even leave him cold suppers in the refrigerator. Calum doesn’t have to do anything more than love Ashton, but he does so much more than that, and he doesn’t ask for anything in return. Sometimes, Ashton isn’t sure Calum understands how appreciated he is for how he goes above and beyond what is expected of him.

“And it just makes me wanna kiss you and never stop,” adds Ashton, before Calum can say anything. It is important that Calum doesn’t brush him off. It is important that Calum doesn’t think this is merely Ashton being grateful for this single act of kindness. Ashton is grateful for everything Calum does. He isn’t sure he has ever told Calum this before, so he wants to take advantage of it now. “Please, don’t pretend like what you’re doing—waking me up, getting me clothes to wear, making me breakfast—is nothing. It’s the world. You’re the world. You really are.”

Calum frowns, looking away. He lets go of Ashton and steps back, like Ashton’s words are too much too handle at once. Ashton sucks in a shaky breath, feeling a stab of pain shoot straight through his heart at the palpable distance between the two of them.

“Ash—”

“No, you _are_ ,” insists Ashton, because he can see the way Calum is clamming up. He can see how much Calum doesn’t believe what he is saying. He wants Calum to believe. He wants it more than anything else in the world. “You welcomed me into your relationship, and you invited me into your home, and you are sharing your life with me, and you don’t ask for anything in return. I don’t—I don’t get it. What’s your story?”

“I don’t have a story,” says Calum, a beat too quickly. His gazes flits up to meet Ashton’s. “I do what I do, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? When you love somebody? You’re supposed to do whatever you can to make them happy, and that’s what I’m doing.”

It sounds rehearsed, like Calum has said this thousands of times already. It settles all wrong across Ashton’s skin, but Calum flashes him a brief, forced smile and retreats from the room. Ashton wants to call after him and ask how Calum can love Ashton so unconditionally—how Calum can do so much for Ashton—and still feel like he has to hide away.

If anybody understands secrets, it is Ashton, so he lets Calum go. He won’t force Calum to spill his innermost thoughts when he, himself, isn’t willing to. Some secrets are better off kept.

Ashton dresses himself in the clothes Calum had picked out for him. They are nothing special, a pair of trousers and a nice dress shirt that Ashton has worn a hundred times before, but they seem to look better on Ashton this morning when he looks at himself in the mirror. It is probably because Calum picked them out. It makes Ashton smile.

Once dressed, he slips his feet into the shoes waiting next to his door then heads into the bathroom to run a toothbrush across his teeth. He brushes as vigorously as he can in the short amount of time he has to get ready. Luke is probably already waiting for him in the car. Ashton doesn’t have any time to waste.

He stumbles still half-asleep all the way downstairs where Calum is waiting on him with a steaming mug of oatmeal in one hand and a thermos full of coffee in the other. Calum hands both to Ashton at the foot of the stairs. He presses a quick kiss to Ashton’s cheek and wishes him a good day. He ushers Ashton to the door before Ashton can think that he should kiss Calum back. It is too late. Ashton makes a mental note to kiss Calum an extra time tonight, if he makes it home before Calum goes to bed.

Except Ashton doesn’t, in fact, make it home before Calum goes to bed that night. He doesn’t make it home the next night, either, or the one after that. Ashton’s life becomes a routine of pulling long hours on the project, getting home super late to a dark house and a cold supper, dragging himself upstairs to his bedroom and sleeping there so that he doesn’t wake the others, and then waking up a few hours later to Luke shuffling underneath the covers with him. Ashton wakes up late every morning, sometimes managing to catch a shower but usually not. Calum greets him with his breakfast—oatmeal and coffee—at the foot of the stairs every morning without fail. He kisses Ashton on the cheek and ushers him to the door before he is late.

Days pass, turning into a week and then half of another.

Life goes on.

The only thing that changes in the routine that has consumed Ashton’s life is that Luke starts staying late, too. He claims in the beginning that he has work he needs to finish. A few days in, Luke shyly admits that he misses spending time with Ashton, that it feels like he hasn’t see Ashton in ages, and that he just wants to dine with him in evenings before he has to go home. Ashton kisses him on the spot, careless that Cassidy is watching from across the conference room. He loves Luke so, so much that, sometimes, he can’t believe he can feel so much love for another person and not combust under the power of it.

“I ordered Chinese,” greets Luke, the evening before the project’s deadline.

He strolls into the conference room like he has as much right to be there as Cassidy and Ashton does. Since it is half past five o’clock in the evening, their usual dining time, he does, in fact, have a right to be in here. Ashton’s old habit of eating cold leftovers when he got home has transitioned to eating warm fast food with Luke and Cassidy in the conference room.

“Got you Bourbon chicken, Cassidy. It’s your favorite, right?”

“I don’t know why I ever disliked you, Hemmings. You treating me like this? I look forward to the days you run this place,” says Cassidy, grinning. She pushes aside the documents that she has been working on for the past hour and grabs the takeout boxes Luke hands her. She sets them down in the clean spot on the table then starts unboxing them. Besides the chicken, Luke also got her noodles and steamed broccoli. “When is that going to be, by the way?”

Luke shrugs as a way of an answer. He goes about setting out the rest of the food he brought for him and Ashton in a clear spot a few seats down the table from Cassidy. There isn’t a whole lot of space left in the conference room that is clear of stacks of documents from the project. He motions for Ashton to sit down then he serves Ashton food, waving off Ashton’s offer to help.

“This project is due tomorrow, right?” asks Luke. He carefully divides a container of rice between two paper plates. “Gonna celebrate its completion tomorrow night?”

“Looking to party?” asks Cassidy, grinning.

Luke laughs. He dishes out the rest of the food then hands Ashton one of the plates. He takes the other for himself as he sits down in the chair next to Ashton. He unwraps a package of disposable chopsticks.

“Nah,” he says. “I just know that Marty’s been itching for a bar night since you started this project. Figured he’d be up for a celebration.”

Cassidy makes a face. She glances apologetically at Ashton, obviously recalling the first time she took Ashton to lunch and Martin was rude. Ashton hasn’t seen much of Martin since then. Cassidy turns back to Luke.

“Haven’t really heard from Marty lately, to be honest. He’s, uh—an acquired taste, and I don’t know if I’ve still got it.”

Luke raises his eyebrows, intrigued, but he doesn’t pursue the conversation any farther. He has never been one to participate in idle office gossip. Ashton eats his rice and specialty chicken, too hungry to want to abandon food in favor of speaking. For the next few minutes, Luke and Cassidy make a similar sacrifice until their bellies get fuller and there is little left on their plates.

“You’re right, though,” says Cassidy, as if the conversation had never died down to a lull. She pokes at the lone piece of chicken left in a small puddle of sauce in the corner of her takeout container. “We should celebrate. We’ve been working hard enough. We deserve some alcohol and bad decisions.”

“Pretty sure you just described the entirety of my university years,” says Ashton, laughing even though his those were probably the worst years of his life. “Think I’ve have enough bad decisions to last me for the rest of, well, forever.”

Cassidy laughs like it is a good joke, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.

“No, seriously,” she says, “you and me—and Luke, I suppose—we should hit the bar tomorrow night.”

It is tempting, going to unwind after the long, stressful few weeks he has put in working on this project. He and Cassidy are pretty good friends now, and Cassidy and Luke have been getting along, too, so Ashton is certain that they would all enjoy a bar night, as well. The affirmative is on the tip of Ashton’s tongue, but he can’t say yes to Friday night.

“Can we make it Saturday night, maybe?” asks Ashton. “I haven’t really seen much Calum or Michael lately, and I miss them.”

Cassidy smiles, her eyes soft.

“Of course,” she says. “I’m a flexible person.”

Luke snorts, his cheeks flooding with color. Cassidy throws her last piece of chicken at him. Luke catches it with his mouth in a spectacular display of coordination. He grins cheekily at Cassidy then eats the chicken.

“Shut up, you—or we’ll make you pay for drinks,” she threatens.

“Was going to buy Ash’s anyway,” he says. “It’s only you who has to buy your own drinks.”

Cassidy huffs, pretending to be offended. She folds her arms across her chest.

“And here I thought we were make significant progress.”

“We are,” says Luke. “You just shared your dinner with me.”

Cassidy bursts out laughing, so does Ashton. Luke grins, proud of himself. It lights up his entire face. He looks even more beautiful than he did five minutes ago. Ashton always thinks Luke is one of the most beautiful people in the entire world—that Luke is breathtakingly handsome—but there is something ethereal about the way Luke looks so proud of himself for making Ashton, and Cassidy, laugh.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” says Cassidy, a few minutes later. She has managed to stop laughing, though it lingers in her voice. “You’re great, but you’re mostly a great distraction to Ashton, and we _need_ to finish this thing by tomorrow.”

Luke agrees to leave easily enough, knowing that she is right. Cassidy and Ashton need to get back to work. Luke helps clean up their meal then lingers with Ashton when Cassidy goes to the restroom. It is a rare, precious moment they have alone. Ashton looks forward to tomorrow night when he can have this whenever he wants—when he can have this with Michael and Calum, too.

“Don’t spend the night here, all right?” requests Luke. “Sometimes, I swear you’re near to doing so.”

“Some nights, I’ve been tempted to,” admits Ashton. He shudders as he thinks about the mountainous workload he has left overnight in the past. Hopefully, that will not be the case tonight. With any luck, he and Cassidy may even finish the project before they leave. “But then I think about you and about how you sneak into bed with me no matter how late it is, and, really, who in their right mind would pass that up?”

Luke blushes, ducking his head. He stares at their feet, as if looking Ashton in the eyes is entirely too much. He always does this when Ashton compliments him. He always acts like he doesn’t know how to accept Ashton’s love, but he should know. Ashton’s love isn’t that different from Michael’s or Calum’s, and Luke has had years of practice accepting their love.

“I just don’t want you to sleep alone,” says Luke, as if his actions actually need justification. They don’t. “I don’t want you to think I love you any less.”

Ashton places his finger underneath Luke’s chin and uses it to gently lift Luke’s head until Luke is face-to-face with Ashton once more. A bright blush stains Luke’s cheeks. His eyes immediately meet Ashton’s. They are clouded with self-doubt so apparent that it makes Ashton’s heart lurch in his chest.

“I would sleep alone every single night and not doubt how much you love me,” says Ashton. “I wouldn’t like it, of course, but you already prove how much you love me in thousands of other ways.”

Luke smiles. It blossoms across his face, erasing the self-doubt, and it is so beautiful that Ashton has to taste it for himself. He crashes his lips against Luke’s, eager to kiss him, then lets up to enjoy the press of Luke’s lips against his own. It isn’t something Ashton has gotten to appreciate very much over the past few weeks. Quick kisses under Cassidy’s supervision and sleepy presses of lips to corners of mouths are nothing compared to the real thing—to the feel of Luke’s lips pressed against Ashton’s own as if neither of them have any other place to be.

As all good kisses do, it has to come to an end. Ashton breaks it first, but he doesn’t move away. He rests his forehead against Luke’s and pants to catch his breath.

“Like I could ever forget you love me when you kiss me back like that,” says Ashton, grinning.

Luke laughs, out of breath. He pulls back from Ashton, grimacing like it is the hardest thing he has ever had to do. Ashton understands the feeling. He doesn’t want to let go of Luke, either, but Cassidy is going to be back from the restroom soon, and he needs to get back to work.

“Gonna have to kiss you more then—just to make sure you don’t forget,” says Luke.

“Yeah,” agrees Ashton. “You do that.”

Luke smiles. He leans in for another kiss, but this one is nothing more than a brief press of his lips against Ashton’s. Then he takes another step back, heading for the door.

“Should probably clear out of here and let you get all this done, so that you can come home to me,” he says.

He starts walking toward the door even as Ashton wants to ask him to stay for the rest of the evening. Luke probably has better things to do than hang out at work all night—like cuddling with Michael and Calum on the couch, all tangled up together as a movie plays on the television.

“Don’t stay too late, all right? I want to sneak into your bed tonight.”

“With any luck, I might even get out of here at a decent time and you won’t even have to worry about sneaking anywhere. I’ll just sleep with you all in the big bed,” says Ashton, wistfully, calling after Luke.

In the doorway, right before Luke leaves, he flashes Ashton a smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, suggesting that Luke doesn’t put much credibility in Ashton’s fantasy. Ashton doesn’t blame him, really. There is still a sizable pile of work left ahead of Cassidy and him. If they are terribly unlucky, they are going to be here until midnight.

Still, Luke doesn’t voice his doubts. He offers Ashton a final farewell and disappears down the hallway. Ashton watches him leave until he turns a corner and Ashton can’t see him any longer. Ashton sighs to himself. He already misses Luke. The long hours at work are catching up to him, and all he really wants right now is to be at home with Luke and Calum and Michael. He isn’t.

Come tomorrow, though, he will be.

With that in mind, Ashton turns back to the pile of work left on the conference table. Cassidy comes back a little while later. Ashton doesn’t call her on her lengthy restroom break. She was probably giving Luke and him ample time to say goodbye, which he appreciates. Cassidy has become a really good friend to Ashton over the past few weeks. He hopes that she stays that way when they aren’t locked up in the conference room for fifteen hours a day.

Cassidy silently takes the other half of the remaining work. Together, they sludge through the files and gather the information they need for the project. Cassidy handles all of the compilation jobs, working the current state of the project into something a little more final. Ashton feeds her the numbers as she needs them then double checks them when she is done.

They work efficiently as a team, so efficient in fact that they zoom straight through the rest of the work in no time at all. It turns out that most of the information in the remaining documents are recounts of previous records. The only thing either of them have to do with the repeated information is to double check their previous data, which cuts the amount of work in half and saves them precious hours of meticulous work.

By the time that Cassidy inputs the last number, the clock on the wall reads eight-oh-five. Ashton grins, a rush of excitement spreading over him. If they can finish up here in the next twenty minutes, he will make it back in time to sleep in the big bed tonight. He has missed sleeping with Calum and Michael over the past couple of weeks when his work schedule became too burdensome to interrupt their rest.

“If we would have known it wouldn’t take very long to finish this up, we could have just put it off until tomorrow,” says Cassidy, grinning triumphantly as she sits back in her seat. “You should have just gone home with Luke earlier.”

Ashton shrugs. Now that the project is finished, he will get to see Luke—and Calum and Michael—as much as he wants to, so he isn’t too disappointed that he stayed late tonight. Maybe he will take off work early tomorrow. He has more than enough time saved up for an afternoon off. He could use that time off to do something special for the others, like maybe cook them a nice dinner. He managed to keep himself fed for a few years. Surely, he can cook well enough to do something nice for Calum, Michael, and Luke as an apology for being so busy as of late.

“Couldn’t let you take credit for finish it on your own,” teases Ashton. “Or else it would look like I wasted my time working on this thing.”

“C’mon, you weren’t wasting your time,” she insists, chuckling. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. Without you, I would have never finished this thing.”

It is true. There is no way that Cassidy could have finished this project herself on the timeframe she was given. Ashton has no doubt that she would have been capable of handling the entire project alone but for the time pressure placed upon it. The project is the final summation of information that will determine whether the company will expand into a brand new location in a yet to be named city. If the stats are good here—and Ashton knows they are from the work he and Cassidy has put in—the executive will start looking for a place to open a new branch.

The new branch, of course, means nothing for Ashton or Cassidy, except that their work on this project reflects positively on their overall work performance. It might lead to a promotion. That is more likely to happen for Cassidy, who has been working here a lot longer than Ashton has been. Still, when Ashton is to the point in his career when he could potentially move up through this company, this project should be a good selling point.

“Let’s pack up and head home,” says Cassidy. “I think I’ve got enough time to hit the gym for the first time in like two weeks. D’you mind if I stop by my place and grab my gym bag before I take you home?”

Ashton shakes his head. He thinks about telling her that he can just catch the bus back to the house at this time of a night, but Cassidy didn’t like the idea when Ashton first pitched it to her when they began pulling overtime hours. She has insisted on driving Ashton home every night, even though she doesn’t have to. Ashton appreciates her kindness so much, so he cannot be too particular if she wants to run a quick errand on their commute.

They put away a few things in the conference room, but since they will be back in here early in the morning, they don’t do a whole lot. Ashton puts the cap back on the pen that he was using. He closes the manila folders that lay open on the table before him and calls it a night. He and Cassidy can straight everything up in here tomorrow after they have submitted the final project.

The hallways are dimly lit as they walk to the elevators. Hardly anybody is even here this late. A couple of custodians are cleaning on the break room. The lights are on in a few offices they pass. When they get to the elevator, they ride it down alone. They don’t talk much, both so bone tired from the project that all they care about is leaving the office as quickly as they can.

In the car, Cassidy cranks up the radio dial. Ashton doesn’t share the same music taste as Cassidy, but he has grown fond of the upbeat oldies Cassidy plays on repeat every night. She says it is her way of unwinding. Ashton is pretty sure it is her excuse to sing at the top of her lungs. Either way, Ashton doesn’t mind. He sits back in his seat, stares out the window, and counts down the minutes until he gets home to Luke, Calum, and Michael.

Cassidy lives in a townhome in a nice neighborhood that is about a five minute drive from Ashton’s home. She parks haphazardly in her driveway and leaves the engine on as she runs inside for her gym bag. Ashton waits patiently in the car for her, but he doesn’t have to wait long. She is in and out within minutes. She climbs back into the car, throws her black gym bag in the backseat, and backs out of the drive.

When she stops the car in front of Ashton’s home, Ashton has to contain himself before he leaps out. It is bad manners to accept a ride from somebody without showing gratitude. Ashton prides himself for his manners. He reaches for the volume dial and turns it down to a level that he can speak over.

“Thank you for taking me home again,” he says. “May have to buy you a drink tomorrow night to pay you back.”

Cassidy laughs.

“You saved my ass on that project, I think we’re even,” she says. “Now, go in there and kiss your—well, everybody, I suppose. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” agrees Ashton, as he gets out of her car.

Cassidy drives off the moment his feet hit the concrete walk. He doesn’t care. He grins as he hurries to the front door, eager for the company that is inside. His shoulders feel lighter than they have in weeks, now that the project is finished. He is looking forward to surprising everybody with his early night and curling up in the big bed with Luke on one side and Michael, hopefully, on the other.

Ashton throws open the door then quickly shuts it behind him. He is so excited that he nearly trips over his own feet. He thinks about who he is going to kiss first—Calum, probably, because he still owes Calum kisses for the ones Ashton was always too sleepy to return in the mornings.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” demands Luke.

Ashton freezes in the doorway to the living room. In his haste to get home to the others, he hadn’t noticed the tension thick in the air. He does now. The living room looks like a battleground. Luke stands on one side of the coffee table with a crumbled letter clutched in his fists. Calum stands on the other side, arms folded across his chest and fire in his eyes.

Michael stands in the middle of them, looking between the pair with anxiety clear on his face. Only he notices Ashton’s appearance. His gaze flits to Ashton’s, and Ashton tries to smile at him, because Michael looks like he is on the edge of breaking down in the midst of the tension, but Michael doesn’t smile back. His anxiety turns icy cold. He turns back to Calum, instead.

Ashton’s heart lurches in his chest.

“What difference does it make?” returns Calum, callously.

“Yeah, sure, let’s play that card as an excuse to keep secrets from me,” snaps Luke. “I am so fucking tired of everybody keeping secrets! Michael won’t budge on what the hell is going on with him, and Ashton won’t tell anybody who the hell this Brandon is even though he literally ran into him a couple of weeks ago, and now you—you’re being traded to the best team in the league!”

Ashton flinches when Luke says his name. He takes a step back under the force of it. Fear rushes across his skin. He doesn’t know how Luke knows about Brandon in the sandwich shop. Luke shouldn’t know, because it is Ashton’s problem, not Luke’s, and it isn’t even a problem anyway. Brandon has no power over Ashton, not anymore. Ashton can handle him. He can avoid Brandon until Brandon gets tired and leaves, and nobody will ever have to worry about it, much less Luke or Calum or Michael.

Except Ashton doesn’t think this is the best time to bring up how unimportant Brandon is. Luke doesn’t even act like he knows Ashton is standing here, listening to this. Calum speaks up before Ashton has a chance to, anyway.

“I’m not being traded,” says Calum. “I turned it down.”

“You can’t turn it down! Take the damn job. It’s the chance of a lifetime. It’s what you’ve always wanted, right?”

“You don’t get it, do you? I can’t take the job, because I couldn’t—I couldn’t leave _you_ alone again.”

It sounds like a genuine reason. Calum’s eyes are wide with sincerity, but Luke snorts. It is an ugly sound. He shakes his head in disbelief.

“What does that even matter?” he asks, still fiery but quickly losing steam. He glances at Michael, who recoils from him, then turns back to Calum. “I mean, what’s the fucking difference between you and Michael leaving me all alone again and you two ignoring me here like you’ve been doing?”

“Don’t you give me that shit,” snaps Calum, shaking his head.

“Why not? Still in the mood to pretend like everything is just perfect?” challenges Luke, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. Ashton doesn’t think he has ever seen Luke look so mean—or, rather, so hurt. “Because it isn’t. I haven't even slept in the same bed as you and Michael for nearly two weeks! Things haven't been perfect for a very long time, and you don’t give a damn.”

“ _Luke_ , _Calum_ ,” interrupts Michael, sharp and scared. “C’mon, this is stupid. Let’s—”

But, for possibly the first time ever, Calum speaks over Michael. He is seething mad. He balls his hands into fists at his sides. Ashton thinks for a split second that Calum might haul off and punch Luke. He doesn’t. His words pack the punch instead.

“I wanted a fucking dog, Luke!” he screams. “You brought home another fucking person!”


	19. Chapter 19

The words hang heavy in the air, thick and powerful and earth-shatteringly devastating. Ashton sucks in a startled breath. He stands frozen in place. His heart jumps to his throat and takes refuge there. He thinks about all of the times his precious heart has shattered into millions of tiny pieces—of that time back when he was a pimply-faced teenager and Patty Montgomery hadn’t wanted to kiss him, of that time and of all of the time he was trapped by Brandon and nobody thought he was worthy enough to be saved or to be loved. None of those compare to right now.

“Is that—is that how you really feel?” asks Ashton, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

He wavers over the syllables, but he keeps his gaze bravely on Calum. If he looks anywhere else—he can see the stiff postures of Luke’s and Michael’s shoulders, and if he were to look over at them, he might do something horribly embarrassing like cry and demand to know how the hell Calum has let Ashton go on this long thinking Calum loved him as much as he loved Calum. Ashton doesn’t want to cry. He isn’t so sure Calum is worth his tears, because, apparently, in Calum’s eyes, Ashton himself isn’t worth love.

“Is that how you’ve really felt this whole time?”

Calum draws in a sudden breath. It seems to echo in the room. The sound of it packs a punch straight to Ashton’s battered heart. It isn’t a _no_. It isn’t _the_ _no_ Ashton needs to hear to keep his heart from shattering into thousands of tiny, irreparable pieces.

Ashton looks away and says, “I see.”

The unfortunate heartbreaking thing is that Ashton should have seen this entire time. It has always been there in the cracks of the relationship that Ashton naively pretended weren’t there. Calum never kissed Ashton on the lips. He never said _I love you_ back to Ashton, either. Maybe that should have been a sign.

Ashton has never felt so much like an obligation in his entire life. He should have known better anyway than to think that he would ever be this lucky—than to think that his love would be reciprocated in the exact same way that he gave it away. The thing is that Ashton has never, ever been so fortunate in his life.

It was too good to last.

“It’s nothing, all right?” says Calum.

The words pierce like jagged knives straight through the shattered remains of Ashton’s heart. Calum has more to say. He takes a deep, readying breath to let it all, but Ashton doesn’t want to hear it. He already knows that whatever Calum has to say isn’t going to contain an _I’m sorry_ or an _I do love you_ that Ashton so desperately—so pitifully—wants to hear.

“Yeah, I’ve come to realize that,” interrupts Ashton.

He looks back up at Calum. Ice chases across his broken heart. He welcomes it, because it is the only thing keeping him from absolutely and completely, one hundred percent breaking down right now. Calum doesn’t deserve such to be witness to the weakness Ashton harbors for him.  

“It sounds like _I’ve_ been nothing for a long, long time.”

Calum gasps, wounded like he has any right to complain about the amount of hurt Ashton’s words might cause. Calum’s pain is only temporary, only as long as the words themselves float in the air between them. He won’t go to bed tonight crying himself to a restless sleep over them.

“That’s not what I said,” says Calum, harsh and quick. 

“No,” agrees Ashton. He offers Calum a ghost of a smile. It twists cruelly upon his lips, and a part of him rejoices when Calum flinches. “What you said was much more heartless.”

Calum snorts at that. He rolls his eyes and folds his arms across his chest. He adopts a defensive posture, drawing himself up to full height as if that would mitigate some of the bloodthirsty fire underlying Ashton’s words.

“I’m heartless?” he repeats. He makes it sound like the most far-fetching adjective in the world, like he had not just stood there and screamed at Luke and said he would rather have a dog than Ashton. “I’m not the one who waltzed right in and expected everything I couldn’t give, and, dammit, I tried to live with it. I tried to do what I needed to do to keep everyone happy. I welcomed you into my home when you didn’t have anywhere else to go. I fixed you lunches when you didn’t have anything to eat. I gave up my fucking dream job just so that you could stay. How dare you stand there and say that I am heartless.”

It is cruel, the way Calum can paint the joys of Ashton’s life so horribly. Ashton takes a step back, stumbles his way to make distance between him and Calum, the man he thought had loved him as much as Luke and Michael did. But Ashton has been a fool this entire time. The niceties that had so easily befallen him were not so nice at all.

“Calum,” breathes Michael, sounding for all of world like it is ending.

Ashton dares to rip his gaze from Calum to focus on Michael, small and vulnerable and _shattered_ in the no man’s land between Calum and Luke. Michael looks every bit as heartbroken as his voice had sounded. His bottom lip trembles. His eyes are so, so wide and filling with tears that he doesn’t bother to blink away. They spill unhindered down his cheeks, crooked wet paths of sadness.

Michael looks heartbroken in all of the ways that Ashton had never hoped to witness. It is something out of a nightmare. Michael looks like he might crumble standing on his own, like he needs somebody to hold him and to promise him that everything is all right, but Ashton stays rooted where he stands. He cannot comfort Michael. He cannot lie to Michael. 

Nobody else jumps to Michael’s aid, either.

“I don’t know what else you want from me,” says Calum, quietly. He still holds his defensive posture, but it is jaded by the way his shoulders curve in toward himself. He stares at the ground, neither willing to look at Ashton or Michael. “I gave you Michael and Luke. I don’t have anything left.”

A sort of odd numbness blankets Ashton, and he feels removed from the scene, like an onlooker rather than an active participator.

“I just wanted your love,” says Ashton, equally as quiet. Part of him thinks that maybe Calum doesn’t deserve this, either, his complete and total heartbroken vulnerability, but the numbness keeps him from caring too much. Maybe he will regret it later when he is miles away from this conversation. But maybe—just maybe—this is exactly what Calum needs to hear to make up for all of the hurt that Calum has instilled inside of Ashton’s chest. “That’s all, but—uh, since you don’t have that to give me, I suppose I’ve been wasting my time.”

There is a sort of finality to his voice. He doesn’t expect it until it comes out of his mouth, and then he knows through his very soul that this is the crossroads they have come to. This is the decision that he has to make. He cannot stay here in this house with these people knowing that the mountainous amount of love he harbors for the other three is not entirely requited. His heart can’t handle it. His pride, what little there is of it right now, can’t either.

“Ashton,” says Luke, a plea.

Time grinds to a halt. Ashton glances at Luke and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Luke looks even more heartbroken than Michael, his eyes already bloodshot and his lips quivering in a frown. Ashton’s battered, splintered heart lurches in his chest. He blinks back the tears that spring to his eyes. He refuses to cry over Calum, but Luke is worth it.

“I’m sorry,” says Ashton.

And he is. He is so, so sorry that he is breaking Luke’s heart. He is so, so sorry that Luke isn’t enough of a reason to stay here in this loveless house. Mostly, he is so, so sorry that he can’t steal Luke away from Calum and Michael and keep Luke for himself forever. Luke deserves to be loved. He deserves to be cherished. He deserves to be happy. Luke was with Michael and Calum for a lot longer than he ever knew Ashton, so Ashton has no claim on him. Not really.

“No, don’t be sorry,” says Luke. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave.”

Ashton frowns. He blinks back more tears, only this time he isn’t as successful. One traitorously escapes and falls down his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, because he doesn’t know what else to say other than that. He wants to tell Luke that he loves him—because _he still does_ —but he thinks that would be a special kind of hell that Luke doesn’t deserve, to know that Ashton loves him but is leaving anyway. “I don’t belong here.”

Luke takes a step forward, toward Ashton, but Ashton can’t let Luke reach him. He can’t, because if Luke does, Ashton won’t be strong enough to do what he needs to do. He won’t be strong enough to leave, so he matches a step backward. Luke stops short, hurt flashing like lightning across his face. The distance between them is palpable.

“But you do,” whispers Luke. It is so silent in the house that his words carry loud and clear across the room to Ashton. “Please, don’t leave me.”

Ashton bites down hard on his tongue in an effort not to cry and run to Luke and take refuge in Luke’s arms until all of this blows over and Calum _loves_ him. But if Ashton is waiting for Calum to love him, he has a feeling he will be waiting forever. Though the idea of spending forever in Luke’s arms is very appealing, Ashton can’t wait around for somebody to love him. He had done it once, in a sense, and it had nearly killed him. He won’t do it again.

“I can’t stay here,” says Ashton, as strongly as he can muster. It isn’t much. His voice wobbles again, and he still wants nothing more than to run straight into Luke’s arms and never, ever leave. He glances toward the door then looks back at Luke.“I can’t stay here knowing that I’m not wanted.”

Luke sniffles, still crying, but he nods, understanding. It is this, perhaps more than anything else thus far, that almost makes Ashton want to stay anyway, even though Calum doesn’t love him. The almost isn’t enough to keep Ashton from walking to the door. He should head upstairs and pack a bag of his things, but he can’t imagine staying in this loveless house any longer right now. He has to leave right now.

Every footfall seems to echo in the room. Ashton feels the others’ gazes heavy upon him, but he doesn’t crumble underneath the weight. His heart is tattered and bleeding in his chest. His lungs struggle to handle the air he breathes in. His knees are weak. But he refuses to let the others, namely Calum, see how horribly difficult each step is to take.

When he reaches the door, he pauses, his hand gripping the handle. He thinks about the first time he had entered this home, how alive with love it had been. That warmth feels a million miles away now—so far, in fact, that Ashton almost doubts that it really did exist back then.

He wonders for a long moment if anybody other than Luke is going to call after him and try to stop him. He waits longer than he should in the threshold, but a part of him is desperate to hear his name once more. He glances over his shoulder first at Luke, who is sniffling, then at Michael, who looks so tiny in sadness, and finally at Calum, who is staring straight back at Ashton.

Calum opens his mouth, and Ashton’s heart skips a naively hopeful beat in his chest. For a split second, Ashton thinks Calum might rush to apologize and beg Ashton to stay, might claim that it was the heat of the moment, might say he doesn’t want a damn dog, not when he has Ashton—but, in the end, Calum says nothing. After a long, tense moment, he finally closes his gaping mouth. His shoulders fall. He sighs and looks away from Ashton.

Ashton’s heart freefalls to the floor. There is nobody there to catch it, so Ashton chokes back a sob, throws open the door, and flees out into the night. He hardly notices the iciness of the air as he barrels out of the house. His hands tremble so much that he has to ball them up in fists and shove them in his pocket as he hurries down the walk to the street.

He doesn’t know where to go.

All he knows is that he can’t stay here.

He isn’t welcomed here.

He isn’t _wanted_ here.

So he breaks into a run. His feet pound against the pavement. He can hardly see for the tears in his eyes. He makes it all the way to the bus stop just as the bus itself is pulling up. It is the only kindness the universe has to extend to Ashton tonight, but he will take what he can get. He stumbles onto the bus and pays the fare. He falls into the first empty seat he can find and curls into a ball, his arms around his legs and his chin on his knees. He leans against the window, staring out at the dark night through the tears still burning his eyes.

The bus snakes its way down streets, covering a large chunk of the city. Ashton rides without a destination. It is only when the hour grows too late for the bus route that he climbs off downtown. His limbs feel heavy, weighed down with the type of exhaustion attributable only to heartache. The night has grown colder.

Ashton shivers in his jacket. He glances around, trying to catch his bearings. Before him is the bar that Cassidy had suggested they meet up at tomorrow evening. Ashton can’t imagine joining Cassidy for a celebratory drink, and especially not Luke, but the temptation of the numbness of alcohol is too great to resist now.

He heads inside. The bar is crowded, which is to be expected on a Friday night, but Ashton finds an empty stool at the end of the bar. He flags down the bartender and orders a shot of whiskey. It is his first of the night, but it certainly is not his last. The bartender pours him everything he asks—a second then a third shot of whiskey, the night special that tastes tangy on his tongue, the bartender’s recommendation which is actually just a jacked up rum and coke cocktail—and Ashton downs each and every one of them in turn.

He doesn’t understand why the world has to work this way—why someone he can love so dearly can think so little of him. He supposes that maybe he should slow down with his drinks, if he is being this melancholy, but the bartender pours him his requested sixth drink, and he can’t find it in him to stop himself from downing it all in one go. It burns like liquid fire down his throat. It settles warmly in his belly, and he thinks that no amount of alcohol in the world can numb the iciness left behind in the wake of Calum’s eye-opening declaration.

He orders a seventh drink, anything that the bartender recommends. A moment later, the bartender places a tall, thin glass of a pink-colored rum infused cocktail. It is a hurricane, and it is ever so appropriate for the devastation of Ashton’s life right now. He drinks that, too, until it is nearly gone.

“Drinking alone isn’t becoming of you,” says a voice over Ashton’s right shoulder.

The body of the owner of that voice plops down in the empty stool next to Ashton a second later. Ashton would know the voice anywhere, just by the sound alone, even if he didn’t look over to confirm who he already expects to be seated next to him: Brandon. The usual shiver of fear doesn’t travel down Ashton’s spine at the sight of the monster. Perhaps it is because Ashton is in the middle of the worst night of his entire life—a life that includes dozens, if not hundreds, of nights squandered away in the darkness by Brandon’s own cruel hand—and nothing Brandon can do to him now can top how abso-fucking-lutely devastating it is to realize Calum doesn’t love Ashton like Ashton loves him.

“What’d you ever see in me?” asks Ashton. He is too tired and too drunk to consider that he should just leave now, save himself from the horrible company and this heart-trampling conversation. “Like why did you choose to fuck me up instead of somebody else?”

Brandon flags down the bartender and orders whatever beer is on tap. He waits until the drink is placed on a coaster in front of him and the bartender is gone before he glances over at Ashton. His eyes are large, wide with sincerity.

“You were my best friend, Ash. My brother in all but name. I didn’t fuck you up. I protected you from everybody who wanted to steal you away from me.”

Brandon pauses to take a long drink of the beer. The liquid is golden in color, and Ashton watches as the level lowers with every swig Brandon takes. It is mesmerizing but perhaps only because of Ashton’s own state of drunkenness. When Brandon is done drinking, he places the glass back down on the coaster. Only half of the beer remains.

“Course, I got careless, and they stole you away from me, and you got hurt, and I’m sorry for that, but maybe now you’ll know that you’re only safe with me. I won’t hurt you.”

Ashton thinks of the long, lonely days trapped in their apartment with nothing more than the walls as company. He thinks of the dream job Brandon convinced him not to take. He thinks of the first time Brandon struck him—an open-handed slap right across Ashton’s face—and how it had knocked Ashton’s entire world askew. He thinks of how that was the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. Or something poetic like that.

“I didn’t even see it coming, you know,” says Ashton, ignoring how wrong Brandon’s statement is in favor of chasing after his own point. He is sad and drunk and heartbroken, but he isn’t stupid enough to fall for Brandon’s trap. “Not with you. Not with—with them. I mean, I think always knew back then and now, but there’s a difference between _knowing_ and _pretending_.”

Brandon is quiet. It is an unusual enough character trait that Ashton looks up from his nearly-empty seventh drink. Brandon is already staring at Ashton, his eyes narrowed and a frown on his face. Ashton vaguely thinks, as drunk as he is, that Brandon looks almost… like a real friend.

“You’re worth more than pretend love,” says Brandon, quietly. He looks away from Ashton and taps his fingers on the bar next to his partially drank beer. “But I think you already know that.”

Yeah, Ashton does. It was, after all, this very truth that had given him the courage all of those years ago to pick a phone and dial a series of numbers he wasn’t even sure worked for him anymore. Tonight, too, it was this very truth that had given him the courage to walk out on Luke’s love. Ashton was worth more than an obsession or a obligation.

“You shouldn’t be here tonight, drinking your troubles away,” says Brandon a moment later as silence stretches out between them. He still hasn’t looked back at Ashton, and he doesn’t make an attempt to now. “You’re stronger than that. I’ll get you a cab. You should take it to your friend’s place—you know, the pretty woman you ate lunch with that day at the sandwich shop—and you should stay there for a few days until you figure yourself out.”

Ashton hiccups, startled. He glances sharply at Brandon and waits until Brandon finally, _finally_ looks back at him. Brandon offers Ashton a half-smile. In Ashton’s inebriated state, he thinks this might be the first genuine smile Brandon has given him since the day they met as strangers, unaware of the tumultuous future before them.

“Why?”

“Because you deserve better than some asshole who made you cry in a bar,” says Brandon, as if it is that simple. As if that was what Ashton had actually meant.

“No—why are you helping me? What do you stand to get out of it?”

Brandon’s half-smile falls into a frown. He grimaces like he would like to look away from Ashton again but wouldn’t dare to do so underneath Ashton’s intense gaze. When he speaks, his voice is firm, like he means ever single word with his entire body and soul.

“I just want you safe. If I can’t keep you safe by—if I can’t keep you safe myself, I know that she can. I know that she will.”

Brandon still hasn’t answered Ashton’s question, not fully, and Ashton has about a dozen more on the tip of his tongue, but Brandon throws back the rest of his beer. He flags the bartender down once again and asks for the number for the cab service that most often runs this street. The bartender rattles off a name then the phone number, which Brandon dutifully dials on his cell phone.

Ashton’s mind is a web of heartache and confusion. He barely listens to Brandon’s side of the phone call, so caught up in exactly why Brandon of all people is the one calling a cab to get him home safely. Ashton isn’t going home—he doesn’t have one—but there is something to be said about Brandon’s certainty that Cassidy will take him in.

Ashton just isn’t quite sure how everything all adds up. He is too drunk for that. It hurts to much to think. He throws back the last of his Hurricane and wishes his problems were as easy to deal with as finishing off a drink is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I sort of disappeared for most of this year, and [here](https://tigerlily-sunshine.tumblr.com/post/165944264843/hi) is the post on my tumblr explaining why, if you care to know. :)


	20. Chapter 20

Cassidy opens the door before Ashton has a chance to even knock, which is probably a good thing given Ashton’s inebriated state. He sways as he stumbles, and Brandon had had to help him out of the bar to the taxi cab. Brandon had paid the fare upfront, tossing more than enough bills at the driver to get Ashton to Cassidy’s doorstep. Brandon had also paid Ashton’s pricey bar tab. It should have probably been a little disconcerting that Brandon was being overly nice, but Ashton was too drunk to give a damn.

Mostly falling into Cassidy’s unsuspecting arms, Ashton only now entertains the idea that there had been much more than just rum and Coke in the last drink the bartender had given him. It is too late now, of course, but he probably should have stopped after the whiskey.

The living room swirls around in front of his eyes. It is a messy kind of neat, with stacks of books scattered across the coffee table and a blue flowery blanket balled up on one end of the couch. It, in short, looks like a place to come home to, a place that is well lived-in, and Ashton feels a terrible sort of homesickness wash over him. He misses the living room back at the house, the one with the couch big enough to fit four adult men side-by-side, cuddled comfortably together.

His heart stutters in his chest in the next second when he belatedly realizes that he won’t be sitting on that couch anymore and that house isn’t his home. He can’t feel homesick for a place that isn’t his.

Except he can, and he is entirely too drunk to rationalize all of the reasons he shouldn’t.

Cassidy leads Ashton to the couch, gently sitting him down on the cushions there. Ashton is easy under her command. It is mostly the alcohol, but Cassidy is so tender with Ashton that a new wave of heartache washes over him.

“It’s all over,” he slurs, drunk and heartbroken. He looks up at Cassidy, who is looking down at him with all of the worry in the world in her eyes. “It was over before it started, really.”

“What happened?”

Ashton’s lips curl into the ghost of a frown. His heart skips a beat in his chest or maybe rather in the pit of his stomach where it has been beaten down to. He wonders if she can see it in his eyes, the end of his world still smoldering even as he sits here. She certainly frowns at him like she can.

“He wanted a dog,” answers Ashton. The words feel like ice on his tongue, frozen and heartless and devastating. “Calum did. He didn’t want me. This whole time.”

Cassidy’s eyes widen. Her knees must buckle underneath her at the weight of Ashton’s admission. She sinks to the coffee table, sitting on it and staring at Ashton in unadulterated horror. It is the same beastly emotion that curls in Ashton’s chest.

“But Luke—”

“Was in love with Calum and Michael long before he ever knew me,” says Ashton, dully. The alcohol mercifully numbs some of the ache that come with such a truth. “I can’t make Luke choose to love me and not them.”

Cassidy’s breath catches in her throat.

“Did Luke tell you he’d pick them?”

He hadn’t, but Ashton hadn’t given him a chance to. Ashton doesn’t think he could handle whatever Luke’s answer might be. If Luke chose Calum and Michael over Ashton, then Ashton could not blame Luke, but it would still hurt, the sharp sting of rejection. Ashton doesn’t even dare let himself hope that Luke might not choose Calum and Michael over him. It wouldn’t be any better.

“I can’t love Luke without loving them, either, and Calum doesn’t love me. I’m not a dog,” says Ashton, looking away. “So I left.”

“For the nearest bar, apparently,” quips Cassidy. The hint of a smile flashes across her lips, but it hardly stays long enough to be recognized as one in the end. “You could have come straight here, you know. You’re always welcomed here.”

As drunk as Ashton is, he still isn’t inebriated enough to air out his age-old insecurities. Ashton has never had friends, not really. Everybody has either looked straight past him or used him for their own selfish good. Brandon had been the first one to look at him twice, and he had only wanted someone to control. Luke, too, had led Ashton straight to devastation: to a man who couldn’t love him.

Ashton isn’t accustom to having a friend or someone to look out for him. Cassidy had been an accident, someone _he_ hadn’t looked twice at until he had been forced to. He doesn’t want to scare her off, to convince her that he isn’t worth befriending, by admitting that he hasn’t had anybody before. He needs Cassidy. He needs her kindness, her friendship. He needs her in the way he needed her to be here tonight, to open her door to him and invite him in out of the cold when he had nowhere else to go. Cassidy is nice, warming in the way that nothing else has been in the course of this awful, horrible evening.

“I rode the bus for a while,” he says, not addressing her statement. He doesn’t know how to explain to Cassidy that he hadn’t thought of her, because he had never had someone to think of before when he needed a way out. The last time, it had taken nearly a month of being trapped in a tiny apartment slowly going insane before anybody had reached out to him. “I couldn’t stay there. I had to get away. The buses only run so long, so I had to get off. The bar seemed as good of a place as any.”

Except, in the end, it wasn’t. Not really. Or, at least, not the one he had wandered into. He can still feel the weight of Brandon’s hand in the small of his back as Brandon guided him out to a cab. Brandon’s kindness sits uneasily in Ashton’s stomach, but, with everything else, it is only a minor, passing concern. It isn’t even worth mentioning.

“Then I came here. I didn’t—I _don’t_ have anywhere else to go.”

Cassidy sighs. It is a long and drawn out sound, like she can’t believe what Ashton says. It lands like a punch to the gut for Ashton. He recoils from her, and she frowns.

“Didn’t you listen to me? You can always come here. I’m glad that you did, too, so don’t go thinking that you aren’t welcome here.”

Gratitude rushes up Ashton’s throat. His shoulder slump in relief. Some part of him settles for the first time since he stormed out of the house. It is an odd sensation, turning to a friend in a time of need and there, in fact, being a friend there to turn to. Ashton can count on his hand the number of times he has ever had such a person before.

“I haven’t got a spare bedroom, but I can make up the couch for you,” offers Cassidy.

It is enough for Ashton. He does not need much space, just a place to lay his head and try to sleep away this awful nightmare that his reality has become. Ashton helps Cassidy pull down clean sheets from the top of her closet. Together, they make the couch into a suitable substitution for a bed.

Cassidy has a few extra toiletries in her bathroom, most spectacularly a new toothbrush that Ashton uses to clean the taste of alcohol out of his mouth. He washes his face with the soap she has set out on the counter for such an occasion. It is a little harsher than he typically uses, but his skin feels nice and refreshed after he is done.

Later, long after Cassidy has shown him the lay of her home and has welcomed Ashton to treat it as his own and has gone to bed herself, Ashton lays his head down on a borrowed pillow on the made-up couch in the living room. He fears he might lay awake, heartbroken and despondent for a long, long time. He doesn’t. The clock on the wall ticks away the seconds to a new hour. Ashton drifts off before the second hand makes it past fifty-four.

That night, he dreams he is stuck in a large, dark cave, and no matter how hard he yells, nobody comes searching for him. He wakes up screaming.

Cassidy goes to work the next morning. Ashton can’t bring himself to brave the office he shares with Luke, even though he and Cassidy have to officially submit their project. Cassidy promises that she will tell the boss that he is too sick to even roll out of bed. She leaves Ashton with a couple of pain pills for his hangover and blanket permission to raid her refrigerator.

Ashton spends the entire day curled up in a ball on Cassidy’s couch, his head resting on his borrowed pillow. He feels small and vulnerable and like his world is crashing in around him—which, to be fair, it is in a way that it never has before.

He checks his cell phone in the afternoon, certain that _someone_ —Luke, maybe—would have tried to contact him, to beg for his forgiveness, to beg for him to come back home. His battery is at twenty-seven percent. He has no missed calls. He doesn’t have any messages, either. He puts his phone away, feeling even emptier inside than he had before he checked it with false hope surging in his chest.

Cassidy comes home a little while after that. She walks in, takes one look at Ashton who hasn’t moved from the couch, and asks him if he wants to help her cook dinner. Ashton isn’t much of a cook, but anything has to be better than staring at the same four walls wondering why no one cared enough to call him.

They fix spaghetti and salad. Cassidy sets Ashton to stirring the pasta sauce and keeping an eye on the boiling noodles as she cuts up the lettuce. It is a monotonous task but easy enough. Ashton tries hard to not think of Calum, of how Calum liked to cook so much, and of how Calum showed his love for everyone by cooking.

He doesn’t do a good job of keeping his thoughts otherwise occupied. He wonders if Calum is at home now, cooking a dinner for three. It must please Calum to not have another mouth to feed, to not have to lie every time he placed food down on the table for Ashton to enjoy. Ashton’s heart aches in his chest.

“Ashton!”

Steaming hot water splashes onto Ashton’s wrist. Cassidy’s warning comes half of a second too late. Ashton drops the ladle back into the pot of noodles, scrambling back from the stove as water bubbles over the top of the pot. Ashton’s wrist burns. He stares listlessly at the disaster as Cassidy rushes to move the pot to a cold cap. The bubbling stops immediately.

Cassidy turns her back on the stove.

“Are you okay?”

She reaches for Ashton’s injured wrist. He watches her with the same sort of detachment as when he had witnessed the noodles boiling over only seconds ago, like he is not in control of his own body but is rather a mere observer who happens to be looking out of his own eyes. Cassidy runs her pointer finger along the red edges of the splattered burn mark rising on Ashton’s skin. Distantly, Ashton recognizes the flare of pain that chases her touch.

“I have some toothpaste in the—”

“Was he at work today?” interrupts Ashton.

Cassidy blinks at him. She is silent for the long span of a second. Ashton’s heart pounds in his chest, anxious for her response. She sighs but holds his gaze.

“No. No, he wasn’t.”

Ashton doesn’t really know what he expected, but his heart twinges in his chest. He lets Cassidy drag him to the bathroom, where she doctors his burn with toothpaste. He is pliant under her command, only wincing at the pain when she presses the cooling toothpaste against the most irritated stretch of the burn. By the time she is finished, toothpaste covers a large area of his inside wrist.

“Don’t touch it,” she tells him, sternly, as she leads him out of the bathroom back to the kitchen. “Do you think you can get the plates and things?”

Ashton nods, feeling numb. He sets off for the cabinet that holds her tableware as Cassidy finishes heating their dinner. He collects a pair of plates and, in the drawer next to him, a pair of forks. He sets them on the table then goes about filling two glasses with ice water.

Once Cassidy moves the spaghetti and pasta sauce to the table, the two of them sit down to dine. Ashton lets Cassidy spoon out her share before he portions out his own. He isn’t that hungry, to be completely truthful, not with the weight of the knowledge that Luke had not shown up at work today. The news does not set easy in the pit of Ashton’s stomach.

The dinner is tasteless, but, when Cassidy asks, Ashton lies and says it is delicious. Truthfully, it probably is. Ashton really likes pasta, especially spaghetti, but, tonight, he may as well be eating dirt for as much as he enjoys it.

After dinner, Ashton offers to do the dishes, but he still has toothpaste smeared across his aching wrist. Cassidy does the washing up instead, and Ashton figures the least he can do is to dry the dishes and put them away so Cassidy won’t have to worry about it later. It keeps him busy, and the busier he is, the less he thinks about what the others, namely Luke, are doing right now and if any of them are as heartbroken as he is. Cynically, he doubts it.

Cassidy has an impressive movie collection. She offers Ashton his choice when they retire to the living room. Together, they share the couch, sitting on opposite ends with their legs stretched across the middle. There is just enough room for the two of them. Ashton thinks, with a pang in his heart, that this is the most domestic he has been with anybody in the past a couple of weeks, save maybe sharing a bed with Luke.

Ashton chooses a newer horror movie, desperate for anything to distract him from how much he misses Luke, Michael, and even Calum. The movie ends up being subpar. It leaves a bad taste in the back of Ashton’s mouth and Cassidy’s, too, so Ashton lets Cassidy pick the next one.

They waste away the weekend like that on Cassidy’s couch, watching movies so late in the night until the first rays of the next morning’s sun peaks through the curtains covering the living room windows. The pair of them fall asleep in a jumbled mess on opposite ends of the couch. They wake up hours later only to fix a quick meal they can eat in front of the television and watch more movies.

It is the most enjoyable couple of days that Ashton has had in a long, long time. By mid-Saturday afternoon, he has nearly forgotten all about how his life is a crumbling pile of nothing, destroyed by the might of the awful words Calum had spewed just a few nights earlier. The pain in his heart gives way to a numb sort of emptiness, which in and of itself hurts nearly just as much.

Loneliness settles across his bones like a heavy winter blanket, but Ashton doesn’t let it consume him. Or, rather, Cassidy doesn’t. Cassidy is a good friend, and every time Ashton starts staring off into space instead of watching the film, she distracts him with an offer to make popcorn or to suggest they change movies, because the one they’re watching is dreadfully boring or some other flimsy excuse. Ashton hears them for what they are: an effort to keep his mind off the love that he has lost. He appreciates her so, so much—to the point that he doesn’t know what he would be doing right now if it weren’t for her.

By Sunday, he has been wearing the same clothes for four days. Cassidy doesn’t have anything for him to wear, living alone as she does as a lady without a steady boyfriend. Ashton is thus faced with two choices: either go buy new clothes or go back to the house to pack a bag that he should have packed the night he left.

In the end, it isn’t that hard of a decision. He doesn’t have the funds to purchase a whole new wardrobe, not when he apparently needs to save every penny he has for a new place. He can’t crash on Cassidy’s couch forever, especially not for free. Cassidy has already done more than enough for him.

“Can I borrow your car?” he asks after the third movie they have watched since they woke up just before noon. “I need to get some clothes, or I’m going to be wearing these to work tomorrow. I don’t think Jimmy will like if I go in my birthday suit, either.”

Cassidy is already reaching for another movie—it is her turn to pick—but she freezes and looks back at him. He thinks she is going to tell him no, which would be fine. He can take the bus, but driving himself would be much quicker. It would also give him an easy escape if returning to the house gets to be too much.

“Do you even have a driver’s license?”

Ashton laughs, caught off guard by her question.

“Yeah, of course, I do.”

“It’s just—you always take the bus or you would ride with—sorry, I guess I just assumed that you did that because you didn’t have a license.”

“I do that because I don’t have a _car_ ,” corrects Ashton. “It was never in the budget, and, really, I don’t need one with the city’s public transportation system.”

Cassidy doesn’t point out that the city buses run a route straight from her apartment to the house, but she is a good friend.

“Sure, you can borrow my car. I can keep you company if you’d like?”

Ashton thinks about it, but he shakes his head. He needs to do this alone. He thinks that, maybe, Cassidy already knows this. She doesn’t look surprised about his response.

“If you’re not back in an hour, I will track you down.”

Ashton laughs, but Cassidy doesn’t crack a smile. She is completely serious, staring at him with her eyebrows raised and her arms folded across her chest. Ashton’s laugh dries up. He is overcome with the warm feeling of being protected. It isn’t something he used to, but he would like to be.

He wishes he had known someone like Cassidy back when he first met Brandon. Maybe he wouldn’t be as broken as he is today, so battered that he let himself get swept up in the mess of the first person who looked at him twice after Brandon. Maybe he wouldn’t be here right now, slouched on Cassidy’s couch, nursing a broken heart and a bruised pride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~An update six months later is better than ten months, right? ;)~~


	21. Chapter 21

At first glance, the house looks exactly like it did the last time Ashton was here. The only difference is that the driveway is empty. Nobody is home, but that is okay. Ashton prefers it that way, since he has nothing to say to these people who strung along his love. He parks Cassidy’s car where Michael usually does. He cuts the engine and climbs out, locking up with the button on the door.

He strides up to the house like he belongs there, even though goosebumps chase across his skin as a chill settles over his heart. The truth is that he doesn’t belong here anymore. It is the same feeling he had the first time Luke brought him home. Maybe he never belonged here at all. He isn’t a dog.

He fishes the hidden key out of the planter box next to the front steps. He uses it to open the front door then returns it to its original spot. If it had not already been obvious how much Ashton hasn’t belong here, it is now—having to use a spare key to enter the place that he had foolishly called home, because nobody had given him a key of his own. The realization leaves a bad taste in the back of Ashton’s mouth.

Inside, Ashton doesn’t bother wondering through the house. He already knows what it looks like, even if a quick peek into the living room shows the same war zone he had left behind that night, as if nobody has been in here since then. He doesn’t take a second look to see if maybe he is wrong about his first glance, if maybe there is a pillow out of place or something else that would disprove his theory. He isn’t sure which would hurt more: that nobody has ventured into the battlefield that had claimed his heart or that someone has and life has moved on for the others when it so horribly hasn’t for him.

The house is eerily silent, like that old manor house in the horror movie he and Cassidy had watched a few hours ago. Ashton hurries up the steps as the chill in his heart begins to spread across his chest, constricting his lungs. The hallway at the top of the stairs has never seemed so long. He passes by the main bedroom without giving into the urge of glancing inside. There won’t be anything in there for him to see. Nobody has slept in that bedroom in a long, long time—not since Ashton began staying late for his project at work. 

He heads into the room that had been his. Looking back on it, he should have picked up the red flags of being offered his own bedroom when he first moved in, especially since he only slept in the big bed with the others whenever he stayed over. He winces. His heart lurches in his chest. He wonders if he will ever stop being blinded by the prospect of love.

He shakes his head in an effort to clear his thoughts. He isn’t here to wallow in self-pity. He needs to get what he came for and then leave, preferably before anybody else gets home. With his heart battered as it is, he isn’t sure he can handle a face-to-face with anyone who lives in this house.

The furniture he had salvaged from his apartment will have to wait for a later date when he has more help than just his own hands. He doubts Calum or Michael or Luke will be cruel enough to dispose of his belongings before he can make arrangements to have them moved. For now, he focuses on gathering enough clothes to sustain him at Cassidy’s. He can’t keep wearing what he currently has on. They are still the same ones he wore the night he stormed out of here, heartbroken and desperate to get away. They are beginning to smell, and he is more than eager to change into anything else.

He grabs a bag from the top of the closet. It is one of the same that he had packed full from his apartment to move here not too long ago. He doesn’t miss the irony as he begins to unload the contents of the drawers of his dresser into the bag.

It takes only about twenty minutes to pack away everything he can fit into the bags he has in his closet. He takes mostly clothes, but he packs a varied selection of his shoes, too. He can’t be too sure how long he will have to stay with Cassidy before he can find a place to live by himself. He might even have to get a storage unit for the rest of his things before then, so he needs to gather his necessities while he can.

He carries one load down to Cassidy’s car and stuffs everything into the trunk. Then he goes back up to get the rest of his things. He wonders if he should leave a note on the door of the bedroom he had been given to inform whoever cared that he would get everything else out by the weekend. He can’t find any paper in the bedroom, though. It isn’t important enough to search the whole house for, so he abandons the idea. He doubts anybody cares, anyway.

There are only a couple of bags left for him, and they are waiting on his unmade bed. Ashton tries not to think about how Luke would sneak in here every night no matter how late Ashton arrived home just so they wouldn’t have to sleep alone. He can’t focus things like that, just like he can’t think about how Calum took to waking him up and fixing him a mug of oatmeal for breakfast after long nights spent at the office. If he thinks of the niceties of believing that Calum and Luke and Michael wanted Ashton as much as he wanted them, he is liable to break down crying and never leave.

He has to leave. His heart can’t take any more ache. He promised Cassidy he would return in an hour. It has only been half that since he left, but if he stays here any longer, he runs the risk of breaking his heart even more by remembering all of the good things that happened in this house under the guise of love.

So he shoulders the last of his things, and he walks out of the bedroom, certain that every step he takes is one more away from heartache.

It isn’t.

Calum stands in the doorway of the mastersuite looking like death warmed over. His skin is pallor, sickly like someone who hasn’t seen in the sun in too long of a time. His hair is a mess atop his head, unbrushed and unwashed. He is wearing an old band t-shirt that Ashton vaguely recognizes as Michael’s, given how often Ashton himself had borrowed Michael’s clothes. There is a large, gaping hole in the knee of his lounge pants. He is, for all intents and purposes, the least put-together Ashton has ever seen him.

The sight shouldn’t break Ashton’s heart as much as it does—the knowledge that Calum looks as bad as Ashton himself feels. Calum doesn’t deserve to feel bad after what he had said. After what he had done. It was he who had callously strung Ashton along all of that time. It was he who let Ashton fall in love with him without ever intending to return that love. It was he would have rather have had a dog than Ashton.

Still, Ashton is human. He is heartbroken and so tragically lovesick that the bags underneath Calum’s eyes don’t give him the type of indignant anger that it should. Ashton’s breath catches his throat instead. He freezes in the middle of the hallway, only a few steps away from the stairs, unable to tear his gaze away from Calum. It is a horrible type of living hell, torturous in a way that Ashton doesn’t deserve.

He should had carried everything down in one go. He hadn’t even known anyone was home. He had thought he was safe… just like he had thought Calum loved him. Ashton sighs, defeated. The bags on his shoulder feel heavier than the weight of the world. Or maybe it is because his knees feel so weak before Calum.

“Ashton,” says Calum.

It is barely more than a grunt. It makes Ashton’s heart skip a beat in his chest, battered and raw. He waits, but Calum doesn’t say anything else, not for a long while. Calum only stares at Ashton, a glint of defeat in his eyes. It is reminiscent of that last night when he couldn’t tell Ashton that he hadn’t wanted a dog, that he had wanted Ashton, that he was just caught up in the anger of the moment.

Ashton feels his heart break into a million pieces once again. He draws in a shallow breath, his lungs unable to support anything bigger, and steels himself against further unnecessary pain. He shouldn’t give Calum any more power over him. He has already given Calum entirely too much.

So Ashton forces one foot in front of the other and nods once at Calum in a manner similar to how he might acknowledge Martin if they were to pass one another in the hallway at work. It is every bit as impersonal as it feels. That is for the best. Ashton doesn’t owe anything to Calum, and Calum can’t offer anything to Ashton.

But Calum grabs Ashton by the shoulder as he passes, a firm grip that has Ashton immediately halting. Ashton goes rigid underneath Calum’s touch. His entire body seizes in confusion. He should pull away, demand to know why the hell Calum thought he had any right to invade Ashton’s space, but a part of him—a rather large, traitorous part of him—wants to lean into Calum’s hold. It is only the burn of horror at the thought of being so pathetic for a man who broke him that keeps Ashton standing frozen in place once more.

“Let go of me,” says Ashton. He doesn’t look at Calum as he speaks. He is still fighting off the unfair urge to collapse into Calum’s arms and beg for—well, Ashton doesn’t quite know what he wants to beg for, so it makes the urge that much less appealing.

“I’m sorry,” says Calum, but he doesn’t let go of Ashton as requested.

If anything, he minutely tightens his hold as if fearful Ashton will bolt the millisecond he is freed. To be fair, it is a legitimate fear. Ashton fights Calum’s grip, tugging his shoulder away from Calum’s hold. It doesn’t work. Ashton stays plastered in place.

“You’re not,” says Ashton, still staring in front of him.

Calum’s touch burns like fire. Ashton doesn’t want to lean into it anymore. It was only a momentary weakness anyway, the product of a mislead belief that Calum loved him. Anger builds up in his chest. He doesn’t push it down like he might have if it were anyone other than Calum.

“If you were, you would have been that night. If you were, you would have called me or texted me or, God forbid, tried to track me down. But you didn’t. You didn’t do any of those things.”

Over the past couple of days of staying at Cassidy’s and doing his best to think about anything other than Calum and Michael and Luke, Ashton has done a lot of thinking about Calum and Michael and Luke. The more he tried not to think about them, the more he did. A large chunk of his fantasies were about what he would say when he next saw any of them. He imagined crying, begging, and even screaming.

He never imagined this: the hollowness filling his chest or the dread of even having to look at Calum. He wishes he were anywhere else right now with anybody else in the entire world. He wishes were back at Cassidy’s, safe and sound on her couch in front of a cheesy horror movie. He even wishes he were back at that bar where he had drank himself silly after storming out of this house. Because even if it had lead straight to Ashton’s old nightmare, Brandon had at least never stooped so low as to prefer a dog to Ashton.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to,” says Calum, interrupting Ashton’s fantasy of leaving. Calum’s hand is still tight around Ashton’s shoulder, but it is Calum’s confession that keeps Ashton glued to the spot. “You didn’t—Luke called after you that night, and you didn’t stop for him.”

Ashton lets out a wrenched laugh, because, of course, it is Ashton’s fault that Calum did not try to contact him over the last few days. A spike of hatred rises in Ashton’s chest. It makes his stomach churn, how easily it is to go from loving to hating Calum. A lump rises in the back of his throat. He swallows around it and looks over at Calum.

“Let go of me,” he says again, eager to leave.

He could probably shake off Calum’s grip, even as desperately tight as it is, but he remembers how forcing Brandon off him had only enraged Brandon, and he doesn’t care to revisit painful memories—or to risk the creation new ones with Calum.

“Please.”

It is the clichéd magic word. Calum drops his hand from Ashton’s shoulder like it has shocked him. Heat lingers in its absence, the ghost of Calum’s hand soaking into Ashton’s skin. Ashton tries to shrug it off. It doesn’t work. His shoulder continues to tingle. He pushes it out of his mind. He needs to leave right now.

He steps past Calum and pretends like his heart isn’t thumping in his throat. He refuses to look at Calum, to give Calum the upper hand that Calum doesn’t deserve. He keeps his gaze firmly ahead of him all the way to the top of the stairs.

“I could have learned to love you, you know,” say Calum, calling after Ashton in one last stand.

Despite his best judgment, Ashton stops dead on the top step, his entire body going rigid. He reaches for the banister and grips it like his life depends on it. His heart skips a beat. He doesn’t look back at Calum. He can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t know what he would see if he did—if Calum would gaze upon him with regret or with longing. He isn’t sure which he would prefer.

“I tried so hard to learn to live with you that I could have learned to love you, too.”

Ashton bites his bottom lip. He tightens his grip on the handrail. His knees feel too weak beneath him.

“But you didn’t,” he says, quietly.

Calum sighs. It hangs in the air between them, nearly palpable.

“No, but I think I started to want to.”

Silence.

“It isn’t enough, is it?”

This time, it is Ashton who sighs. He turns around, still gripping the banister, to look Calum in the eyes, because things as serious as this deserve such dignities. His heart stutters in his chest. Calum’s eyes are so, so wide and filled with desperation.

“No,” says Ashton.

Calum winces, and something occurs to Ashton. Something that he should have realized a long, long time ago.

“It wasn’t enough for Luke, either, was it? Like, he acted like it was, but—I mean, you didn’t love him, either, did you?”

“You make it sound like I never loved anyone.”

“You did,” counters Ashton, because he knows Calum isn’t that cold. He knows that Calum has as much capacity to love as the rest of them do or else their farce of a relationship would have failed long before Ashton came along. For all of Calum’s faults, Ashton wouldn’t dare accuse Calum of being something he isn’t. “You just loved Michael a little too much to love anyone else.”

Calum sucks in a startled breath, as if he is stunned by how much Ashton knows without ever being told any such thing. It isn’t all that surprising, really. Ashton has known Calum for months. He has lived with Calum, and he has loved Calum, and secrets don’t survive in such close proximity. Maybe they did for a while, when Ashton was willingly blind to the problems rampant in the faux perfection of their lives and when Ashton was naïve to Calum’s preference for a dog.

But now, after Ashton’s heart has shattered to nothing more than dust, it is obvious how Calum favored Michael far above Ashton and even Luke. Calum never kissed Ashton on the lips, and he never slept in the same bed with Luke unless Michael was there, too. Real love doesn’t have dividing lines. Real love doesn’t isolate someone so badly they search for another person to love them in a relationship that is supposed to provide that anyway.

Ashton doesn’t understand any of it. He doesn’t understand how Luke stayed with Michael and Calum so long knowing that he was second best in Calum’s eyes. He doesn’t understand how Calum could drag along someone’s love, either—or how he was so willing to do it all over again.

“I am so done with loveless relationships,” says Ashton, quietly. It feels like he is admitting defeat. In a way, maybe he is. He doesn’t want to fight for Calum to love him. “Brandon fucked me up in the worst of ways. He used me. He isolated me. He even taught me to hate myself, but he never, ever pretended to be in love with me.”

Calum winces like the mention of Brandon is a physical blow to him—like the reminder of the atrocity of Ashton’s past is painful for Calum to remember. It isn’t. Ashton laughs, humorless and cynical. 

“You know, I used to think that Brandon was the worst thing that could ever happen to me, but it wasn’t.”

It is mean. It may also be cruel, but it is also the truth. When Ashton’s sister had dragged Ashton from tattered remains of his life, he had been nothing more than a shell of a human being. He was terrified of small spaces, of loud voices, and of anybody who came within reaching distance of him. He wanted to give up nine days out of ten, but he didn’t, because the worst was over. He had survived Brandon. Nobody else could hurt him as deeply as Brandon had. Past-Ashton hadn’t known Calum then, and so past-Ashton had been so blessedly oblivious to how it felt to be seconded to a fucking dog.

Maybe it wasn’t the same. Calum hadn’t isolated him from anyone. Calum hadn’t locked him up in the house for a month, completely bolted in with no windows or no manner of saving himself, not even with the scrape of his own bloodied fingernails against the door. Calum hadn’t made Ashton lose his job. Calum hadn’t even pressed Ashton to nearly take his own life.

Brandon had. He had done all of these things and more. He had warped Ashton’s sense of self so drastically that Ashton himself couldn’t tell up from down. He had made Ashton completely dependent upon him, and Ashton had paid a hefty price, saved only by the stubbornness of his sister and her plight to save his life, because she believed he was worth something no matter how much Brandon had convinced him otherwise.

So maybe Calum and Brandon weren’t the same on the surface, but surface-level never means anything. The top of five feet of water is the exact same as ten feet. The difference is whether someone can float. Ashton hadn’t been able to with Brandon. He hadn’t been able to with Calum, either.

“With Brandon, I know why he did what he did. Brandon isn’t a good person. He lies, and he manipulates, and he is a master puppeteer,” says Ashton, reciting the same list his therapist had encouraged him to make years ago.

It helps a little to remember the fibers that make up Brandon. After Brandon had taken him to Cassidy’s the other night from the bar, Ashton’s dislike for the man had started to become murky in his mind. Surely, the Brandon who destroyed him wasn’t the Brandon who had picked up the pieces of him that night and taken him to the one person who could keep him safe.

Except he was, and Ashton needs to remember that.  

“But you?” continues Ashton, a touch sardonic. “You cook breakfast every morning and fix lunches every day and serve dinner every evening that you’re home. You comfort Michael after he has nightmares. You always apologize to Luke whenever the two of you fight, and you were the one who came to check on me that day I was kicked out of my apartment. You’re a good person, and you fucking blind sighted me. I loved you.”

Ashton pauses, taking a breath that seems to elude his lungs. The uncomfortable tingle of vulnerability washes over him. Mindful of the bags on his shoulder and in his hand, he wraps his arms around his chest, hugging himself, in an effort to ignore how terrifying it is to tell the truth and open himself up to Calum for another round of inevitable heartache.

Sometimes, Ashton hates how pathetic he is. He wonders if that is why Brandon had taken an interest in him to begin with. He knows that is what made him a moldable clay for Brandon’s skilled hands, so it only makes sense that Brandon had been drawn in by how pathetically weak Ashton is for others to like him.

He wonders if that is what Luke had seen in him when they had first met. Maybe Luke had seen a lost soul he could save and nurture and love, because only half of the people who were supposed to love him did.

“But you don’t love me,” says Ashton, as emotionless as possible, “and I can’t hang my hat on you caring about me as long as Michael does and not a second longer.”

“I told you that I wanted to learn to love you,” says Calum.

It sounds like a plea, like a last-ditch effort to salvage what never was of their relationship. He reaches for Ashton again but thinks twice about it. His hand hangs awkwardly in the air for a long second before he tucks it back against his chest.

Ashton stares at him for a long moment then sighs. It should be more enticing, the idea that Calum might love him, but, perhaps, it is too late for such desires. For the second time in this house in Calum’s presence, stark realization strikes Ashton.

There is nothing left for him here.

So, with this in mind, Ashton turns on his heel to face the stairs once more. He begins to descend the steps, one at a time to the rhythm of his battered heart still somehow beating in his chest. As he goes, he calls over his shoulder.

“You had months to learn to love me, but you didn’t, so if you can’t learn to love me, maybe you should look into getting that dog.”

**Author's Note:**

> Woo! So I did a thing? I made a tumblr! (Well, a new one that super separate from my personal one.) I'm going to try to stay on top of the ball and keep it current - or that's my plan anyway... (Good luck to me!)
> 
> [tumblr](http://tigerlily-sunshine.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The individual tag for this fic on my tumblr is found [here](http://tigerlily-sunshine.tumblr.com/tagged/See-the-World-Hanging-Upside-Down).


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